


And She Was

by test_kard_girl



Category: Legion (TV), Legion - Fandom, X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Chaptered, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Marvel Universe, Mutant Powers, Mutant relations are awkward af, Superpowers, Telepathy, Welcome to Mutant High
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2018-11-09 02:49:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11095320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/test_kard_girl/pseuds/test_kard_girl
Summary: All at once, every cell in my body changes, flips over, turns inside out and becomes something else.A little of Syd's journey on the flip-side of Season 1, Episode 1. Because alot happens outside David's head as well.





	1. All. These. Voices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Syd could tell them she isn't who they think she is. But tbh, right now? She's not too sure herself.  
> Or: why you shouldn't get into cars with strange mutants. 
> 
> This part is a purposefully disorientating. SorryNotSorry etc.

I walk away from the hospital, my feet wrapped in my missing boyfriend's skin.  
          _Stay where you                                          please don't David_  
_yes                       are                                                                                                   rabbit yellow_  
_get here after all do you           ambulances_  
_Daaavid_  
_the fun is over_  
_rabbit keep it keep  it              push it over_  
I press my hands over my ears. His hands. His ears. Bigger than mine, rough dry palms hot with blood. And adrenaline; still _chugging_ with adrenaline, I can smell it. All the hairs on my arms are standing on end. I squeeze my eyes closed but the voices don't stop.

The voices; _this_ is what he meant by ‘voices’? All the time? All. These. Voices?

'...David...' I push his name out from between his own lips; I force it, I whisper it, and it makes me feel calm. Calmer. He's here. He's here now. In some way with me, because his voice comes out of my mouth and I know he's alive and not  
                                      _taken over the asylum_  
_can't have her_  
_David              David_  
_take                                                   David please_  
_beep beep             freak beep ssshooooow_  
_is this what_  
I push my hands down harder; breathe: through his nose, through his mouth— his mouth that was so _stupid_ and touched mine for one horrible minute and now...and now this  
                                                                                                                                   _David David David Haller is he_  
_David Haller_  
_David. Haller. It's_  
_Is that him?_  
_That                                                                               really_  
_not a good colour on anyone_  
I stop because I can't make my feet move anymore... Because I want to run but the noise is everywhere, the voices are everywhere, swarming me, swarming me, _Christ_ , frozen in a swarm of wasps please _stop_  
                                                                                                        _David David_  
_Help you_  
'David.'                                                                                                                               _David._  
_David._  
_be aware your nearest exit_  
_Daviiiiid                                             be right back the way you              fucking came._  
_them go call McKenna it can                      may  be_  
_fuck_  
_no     kid                                          his    mess_  
'-David!'  
And then. I see the car.

Black. Old-fashioned. Its outline shivering like a mirage, caught in the heat of the sidewalk. My brain feels like it's collapsing on itself and three people step out.

'...David...' I can barely form the word now, but I hear the echo in my head, in a different voice.  
_David. David Haller._  
A different voice, calm and soft, and it cuts through the swarming in my ears so suddenly I whimper at the ache of it.  
_David. David. it's ok._  
_crazy l                         ook at    him_  
_ready don't     get_  
_they come                                                                        okay_  
_Dav d. We're here to help you._  
I look at the girl with the black hair and the serrated eyes. The man wearing tweed on a warm Autumn day. The woman in white, who rests one pale hand on the hood of the car and holds the other one out to me.  
Their heads are full of the same name as mine.  
_David. It's okay. We're here to help you._  
Something in my chest feels like it cracks.  
'I-I'm—' my feet move towards them. His feet.... I don't even know why. 'I-who are—?'  
I try hard to hold onto the woman's voice; her honey-warm voice and unblinking eyes.  
'My name's Melanie Bird.' She says, carefully. 'It's okay. I'm here to—'  
But  
_Not just a pretty face huh. Pretty, witty, tricky little biatch aren't we                              Hold your_  
_breath,_  
_He loo ks like he co uld blow any_  
_Alm ost too easy r         ight?_  
_We've_  
_c nt to ten, yeah. Drink outta the wrong side a' the glass that                                           always works for me_  
I squeeze my eyes shut. Oh god. Goddd... The people in the car...The black-haired girl stiffens, curls her hands into fists  
_found him._  
_crunched a building up like_  
_easy though_  
_ing on hospi tal slop and prozac                        candy wrapper didn't yo                  u_  
_you_  
_you_  
_clamouring for cross-species pollination, imma right? Such much for nter-racial_  
_yeah I got you_  
_found hi m yes and he's safe and_  
_power o                                                                                                   r is that just adreneline man?_  
_Hair throat_  
_solar-plexus._  
_Shit! Wat                             ch where you're go                                 ing!_  
_just like us! Just. Like. us,             sweetheart._  
_we've_  
_David._  
_Breathe boy, he                              hell. Slow breaths._  
_God                                                 you_  
_Hair throat solar-plexus       Hair throat solar-plexuss_  
_will be s_  
'David! It's okay,'  
The woman in white—Melanie— is at my elbow and I jerk away but she keeps saying his name, maybe _my_ name— _'David'_ — and she holds her hands up as the inside of the car opens its mouth to me, black and warm and  
_better than being locked_  
_er out, got that crazy mutant sex hormone leaking outta her_  
_solar-plexus Oh     come on en o ugh                                already_  
_Clo ckworks anyway? For a hospital I can see why they say,           the                              eyes I guess                    the                                                                                                 eyes are kinda. The same._  
_ell; welcome                                      David._  
_W         oah easy Neo; let's see if we can keep you in          o ne piece o get o_  
_u                           ome._  
_h_  
I hear the car doors slam before I feel their bodies press in next to me, hemming me in, holding me in, words, words, voices all these voices, fuck, _shut up_ and I curl my body in on myself, wrap my arms around my shoulders, _don't touch me_ , don't touch _me_ —  
_Join us in the real madhouse. Fuck. i rec_  
_ognise    yes fuck yes_  
_And this lot? The w e i r d o brigade_  
Fast, tyres crunching over gravel  
'—this is Rudy, he's another—'  
_All t brok_  
_e                                                   n toy soldiers that got                             left behind on                     oween._  
'—like you—'  
_come ooooon._  
'—you're safe now—'  
_alright GET OUT OF          BO        Y screw-loose! Before I crack_  
_OUR                                                                     your_  
_neck._  
_And your little dog too                     WOOF_  
_WOOF_  
_WOOF_  
_Please. god let it be you_  
'—heard the term 'mutants'?—'  
I curl my fingernails into the head-rest in front of me. '...Could you--?'  
Melanie Bird twists in her seat:  
'—David, what—?'  
And then...Oh, I know this. Oh god.

All at once, every cell in my body changes, flips over, turns inside out and becomes something else. All at once. And I have space in the back-seat. And I'm draped in my red coat again. And my hair tickles my cheekbones and my hands are encased in my gloves— _thank god_ —and I wriggle my fingers and of course all the, the... _weirdo toy soldiers_ are staring (rude) and every part of me feels like it's been abused with sandpaper and I drag up a thin smile because Melanie Bird's face is as white as her outfit and oh god, the silence the silence the silence, thank _fu_ —  
\--Then the car brakes scream; there's a hand in my hair; I'm thrown forward like a rag doll—  
And everything goes black.


	2. The Chicken or The Egg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I had this lamp, in my bedroom at home, when I was a kid: all the stars, like, the constellations? Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Orion, Cassiopeia... I know them all..._
> 
>  
> 
> Syd's first meetings with the residents of Summerland. Everything makes tons of sense.

It takes a moment. A kaleidoscope turning...confetti falling... Blue seeping out of red. Red seeping out of black...

 

I know this too.

 

Tiles under my feet. I can hear the soles of my sneakers: red rubber, whispering, laughing.  

 

‘Ok, no, which way round it is, that’s the point, isn’t it? That’s the important bit? What came first?’

 

‘Chicken.’ I guess, grinning. It’s an old argument, and I can’t remember grinning like this in years. ‘Snake. Crocodile.’

 

David grins back, and the warmth of it is sunlight on the side of my face; my cheek against the pillow on Sunday morning.

 

No. No.

 

‘Probably not right. You’re not here anymore, are you?’

 

My hand drops to my side, a red ribbon, a Red Vine, a red noose braided around my fingers.

 

‘You got out.’

 

Step.

 

The corridors at Clockworks. Millions of corridors. Hundreds. Tens. Open plan, that might be good. A garden.

 

Where are the doors?

Makes getting out fucking difficult: no doors.

 

'David?'

 

I'm not sure I say it out loud. I’m not sure it’s my voice, but the walls hear me anyway; Clockworks’ door-less walls. They breathe in and breathe out and suck up the sound of his name and I walk where the red string leads me, heat licking at my skin like a Spaniel's tongue.

 

The mirrors are like in a fancy restaurant – you know: a mirror at the back so the décor looks like it never ends. Kids run into them. Stupid adults too. And here now: a mirror so huge it disappears upwards into black, glassy skin trembling like a bucket of water in an earthquake. I blink at it and beads of silver, red, white drip to the floor and roll around my feet like marbles.

 

Step.

 

I see my reflection slip across the surface; pale, nervous. Poor pale little flower… And something else.

 

Step.

 

There's something in the mirror.

 

Step.

 

Some _one_. Ratty fingernails. A knee. A lock of hair.

 

Step.

 

It's Lenny, from the hospital: David's friend. Her head sliced in half, clean as a boiled egg. White forearms twisted; dark, dark blood splayed out onto the plaster; face popping and bubbling with decay, skin dripping onto the floor like marshmallow.

 

She turns her head and grins at me:

 

‘Hey sugar-tits’

 

But it isn’t Lenny anymore. It’s –

 

**O**

 

'GETOFFMEGETOFFGET GET A LET ME GO—'

I'm shouting before I'm awake, wrenching away from hands I can't see.

'—GET OFF ME!'

'Okay, okay, I'm not touching you, It's—'

'—DON'T TOUCH ME!' I snap again through my teeth, scrabbling upright, curling my arms around my knees—

'–Ptonomy, it's okay. Leave her alone.'

My head twists at the voice.

The woman who called herself Melanie Bird is standing above me: solid, unruffled, still wrapped in pristine white. Behind her, light streams through a large circular window, haloing her blonde head in gold. I blink, vision splintered by the brightness.

In front of Melanie, a man comes into focus; the one with the cynical face and the tweed cap. His hands are held up, balancing awkwardly in a half-crouch, a faint line pulled across his forehead. Beside him, a bigger man with softer eyes, jaw set. Slowly, I let a shivering breath out between my lips, curling my fingers tighter into my sleeves. The light flickers around me and I realise the black-haired girl is here too, long coat swirling about her ankles as she paces unconcernedly back and forth back and forth across the stream of sunlight. 

Melanie Bird's cool stare is fixed on mine.

'Who are you?' She asks evenly. 'What happened to David?'

I stare back.

_David. David, where are you?_

'...W-who are _you?'_ I retort, surprised by how hard my voice sounds, although every inch of my skin feels like its crumbling: 'You...you threw me in the back of a car—I don't think I should tell you anything.'

The tweed-capped man gives a snicker of laughter. I glower at him:

'What? You think that's funny? Kidnapping?'

He raises his eyebrows in faint apology, getting back to his feet. 'Kidnapping?' He repeats. 'This look like _Treasure Island_ to you? You came with us willingly.'

'Or at least, David Haller did.' Melanie corrects. She crosses her arms over her chest; glances briefly at the ceiling. 'I'm sorry, but we don't have much time. Who are you?' She asks again. 'You're a mutant, we know that. Are you a shape-shifter? Where's David now?'

'-A shape...?' I blink at her, but there's no trace of humour in her face. Or on any of the others. It's my turn to sniff a laugh: 'This is bullsh—'

'– Want me to hit her again?' The black haired girl suggests hopefully, from where she's stilled in anticipation behind Melanie's shoulder; but Melanie holds up a warning finger: 'No. No let's just... All be clear.'

Her lack of expression reminds me uncomfortably of the nurses back at Clockworks: impeccable, implacable; carefully coiffed, sensible heels. Like with them, I get the feeling there's some unfathomable game being played behind her carefully mascaraed eyes.

But maybe it's the mention of David's name; maybe just the sunlight warming my face, but there's something trustworthy in her voice; in the summery greenness I can see waving at me beyond the window-pane.

'My name's Melanie Bird.' She tells me again, and this time I remember the car from before; I remember getting in, and the introductions, and all the voices pressing against my skull. 'This is Ptonomy' – Melanie nods her head towards the cynical-faced man— 'Rudy,' The larger man lifts his chin 'Kerry.' The girl has resumed her pacing and barely spares me an acknowledging eye-roll. Melanie fixes me in her gaze. 'We need to find David because we believe he's in danger. You know him. If you have any idea where he is, now would be the time to tell us.'

I stare back at her, an icy spider crawling its way up my spine.

'...He's in the hospital. Clockworks,' I say, trying to hold the older woman's eye. '...He's fine...I mean, it's... Y'know; it's a mental hospital but he's...He's getting better, he's getting out soon.'

'Something happened at the hospital earlier today,' the man called Rudy interrupts 'just before we got there. Something David was in the middle of.'

 _Oh god, his eyes, so blue and so hopeful and so_ stupid—

'...Yeah.' I give a tiny nod 'We're friends, he's—'

'—He's a mutant too.'  Melanie says calmly. 'It was the trace of his powers that we followed. A shock of activity.'

'You keep saying 'mutant'.'

'You've heard the term, haven't you?'

'Of course I...' I reach up to push my hair away from my forehead and notice distantly how hard my fingers are trembling. I think of protests; lines of blank-faced people snaking around the corner of New York City Hall; cars skittering and sliding from the Golden Gate Bridge like Tonka toys; floppy bodies of kids slung over the shoulders of black-clad SWAT officers; a face striped in the hatched shadows of a fire-escape, the crash of glass and screaming in a voice that isn't mine—

'I'm not a mutant.' I say.

For the first time, the smallest of smiles curls at the corner of Melanie's mouth. 'You are. So is David. So is everyone here.'

I stare at her.

The room is warm, bathed in the late afternoon sunlight. In the silence, I can suddenly make out the sound of children outside, shouting, laughing. And my heart, thumping against my jugular.

'You swapped bodies.' Ptonomy says at once and everyone turns to look at him. He squints a little, like the information is just beyond his eye-line 'That's your power. You and David. He...You kissed, and you swapped bodies.'

My stomach curls; I suddenly feel sick, the shock hitting me like a shuddering deep in my bones. Ptonomy is staring at me and his eyes are dark and knowing and so _so_ different from David's—

 _Girl, he's inside_ your brain _. Better get to burying all the weird shit hanging about in there_

'...I don't like people touching me.' I admit, and my voice is so small.

Something flickers over Ptonomy's features, but it's too quick to catch. Beside him Rudy buries his face briefly in his hands.

I think of this morning. Of waking up beside David; seeing his sickly pale skin and messed-up hair from the other side of the solid white bolster separating us. He hadn't slept at all; I knew he hadn't. His blue eyes were dancing with that scrappy happiness I couldn't understand but loved to watch at anyway. The clock had just turned 6am, shadows of the room smudged grey and lilac as the computerised lights began their slow climb towards full brightness. And I hadn't touched him. Hadn't kissed him. I had put my hand on the pillow between us and he'd placed his next to it, so, so carefully, so after a few moments I could feel the heat of his skin through the fabric and it was almost— almost— like we were together.

'...What's your name?' Melanie asks again finally, softly. I drag my eyes away from Ptonomy, out of my reverie:

'...Sydney Barrett.'

'Ms Bird--?' The girl called Kerry turns her head, eyes narrowing, just as a sound of an intercom beeps urgently from the desk I now notice nestled into the far corner of the room. Instantly, Melanie strides over and pushes the speaker button:

'Cary?'

'Um, yes, Melanie I... I think you're gonna wanna come down and see this.' A new voice says, a man's voice, echoing tinnily like he's hollering into the intercom from the inside of an underground bunker:

'We may have a trace on our new friend Mr Haller.'

 

**O**

 

I go with them. I follow in the wake of Melanie’s sharp footsteps, trying to take in as much as I can. But there are long walls and high ceilings and the other three orbiting me like seagulls round a trashcan, so I only catch glimpses: cheery yellow lightbulbs; high windows glazed with sunlight; clean pine cladding like some Scandi-chic hipster hotel...A low buzz of conversation all around that sets my teeth on edge, even though the people are nowhere to be seen. In the elevator I huddle into a corner, forcing back a twist of panic and watch the others' guarded faces as my stomach lurches and we drop through the centre of the building. The man called Ptonomy keeps looking over at me under the skip of his hat, but I ignore him. I try not to make eye-contact at all, watching the tight set of Melanie Bird's shoulders as the elevator slips down and down and down. 

'Basement level.' a recorded voice informs us eventually, cheerfully blasé as the elevator shudders to a stop and the doors slide open. We file out and I find the sunlight gone, replaced with mournful blue fluorescents and steel-grey walls.

Embedded in the wall opposite, Lenny wriggles her broken fingers at me: _Hey sugar-tits_ .

But she's gone, just as quickly.

I hurry after the others.

Finally, Melanie pushes open a door and turns off the hallway: ‘Cary..?’

I stop dead, feeling all the hairs on my arms prickling to attention.

I expected a dark, cramped room; bare, like the corridor outside. But instead, all around me glimmers what looks like a _universe_ of stars; a million spots of brightness, folded up and crammed in, leaking across every available surface. 

'Yes, hello—'

'–You've found him?'

I let out a shuddering breath, blinking rapidly to try and get my eyes to focus. As they do, I realise the stars aren't _stars_ at all; just a multitude of lights flickering from dozens of monitors and TV screens rigged up in tight loops around the walls so that barely an inch is left uncovered.

'Well, it's hard to be— But, yes, it's, it definitely looks like...Um, hang on...'

On every screen, the stars – the dots of light—are shimmering, blinking in and out of focus. A sea of cold white-blue; sparks of red.  Every few seconds, all the displays update, a wave of new information pulsing outward like ripples in a wishing well, trickling up to the ceiling; threatening to spill across my shoes.

'—This...' I step closer, squinting into the host of lights twinkling all around me—

 _I had this lamp, in my bedroom at home, when I was a kid: all the stars, like, the constellations? Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Orion, Cassiopeia... I know them all, I used to think they were_ _talking –_

I blink, the inside of my eyelids smearing purple and green: '...What _is_ this?'

I glance up and find Melanie looking at me, shoulder to shoulder with an older man in a worn-in cardigan and tie knotted haphazardly at his shirt collar, examining me sharply like if he stares long enough I might grow an extra head.

'Sydney this is Cary. Cary, Sydney's the woman we picked up at the hospital.'

'Oh right, of course, the body-snatcher.' The man holds out a hand for me to shake, but retracts it just as quickly: '...Aaand that's probably completely inappropriate. Sorry. Been a while since I met someone with... Never mind...'

'With what, social skills?' I scowl, but Melanie holds up a pacifying hand:

'Someone with your abilities. We can discuss it later. For now: this is him?' She presses.

The guy called Cary nods, looking thankful to turn back to the monitor behind him.

'We're still trying to track some conclusive, um, CCTV but yes, most likely that...That is our guy.'

He traces a circle on the glass with his finger and I lean closer alongside the others, squinting to make it out. In the centre of the screen is one of the red dots –the brightest one there. Beside it, in another window, a digital photo of David's face stares back at me, surrounded by neat boxes of text, the Clockworks logo stamped across the top. His medical file.

I haven't seen this photo before... God, he looks so different... Face slack, purple shadows scratched in his cheeks. Eyes gunmetal grey and boring through me...  
_Ben, You remember David?_

'His sister lives around there, so we figured...' Cary twists back around, the spots of light reflected eerily in his dark-rimmed glasses '... Did he tell you about a sister?'

I stare blankly back at him; open my mouth to answer but the words don't come. Instead: images. Faint flickering images, playing over everything I can see, like smudges on a camera lens. Like the ghost track on a VHS tape

  _Oh god_ look _at her: trying so hard to be cheerful, sensible haircut bobbing around her shoulders, big blue eyes. Amy. Amy,_ man, _how long has it been since I last saw her_ not _behind glass?_

_'It's going to be good.' She smiles; forces herself to wrap me up in a hug, with that big hulk of a husband hovering behind her like a fucking spaniel. Her breath trembles beside my ear._

'...Sydney--?'

'–Yes.' I answer. Bite it out: 'Yeah. Amy.' I press my hands against my eyes. When I take them away again, the ghosts have vanished and Melanie and the guy Cary are looking at me like that second head has finally sprouted. I swallow. Hard: 'David talked about her alot.'

I look back at the screen and the blinking red dot that is meant to be my boyfriend. Around it clusters of blue drift like frogspawn; like cells under a microscope.

'What happened to him?' Ptonomy’s voice comes from beside me. 'We tracked him to the hospital, we got him in the car and then—'

'—And then _he_ turned into _her.'_   Kerry finishes, nudging a toe against the floor and sending the lab chair she's slumped into spinning in lazy half-circles. Cary nods, reaching across to tap briefly at a keyboard.

'Yes, there was a flare of power, about… fifteen minutes after you all converged.' the screen in front of him refreshes, now showing a tiny section of the same blinking star-map that's all around us. As I watch, in amongst a little cluster of red dots one flashes bright and solid before flickering and dying down again. 'I'm assuming that was you? Using your powers.' He looks questioningly at me, but all I can do is glower.

_They know about the hospital. What you did_

'…My _powers_?' I snap, although I do know. Of course I know. I squeeze my eyes closed, but the blinking constellations just keep spinning in taunting negative against the inside of my eyelids. Lenny tilts her head, eyes big and rimmed in gleeful black:

_What she did when she was you_

'So, she isn't David?' Ptonomy continues. 'Just wanna get this clear. He's still out there?'

'He's still out there.' Cary confirms 'Right, exactly _there,_ actually. It's not shape-shifting. More like a kind of—'

_had your powers_

'–teleportation.' Kerry provides, and when I look over at her again she rocks forward, grin flicking open like a switch-blade:

_Don't give a newbie a bazooka and act surprised when she blows shit up_

Oh crap. Oh _crap_ , here we go again... I press my fingers into the corners of my eyes: '...Melanie?' I whisper, shaking my head, trying to clear the pockmarked edges of my vision, the voice, the laughing; a flash of red lips and bright white teeth.

 _Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Orion, Cassiopeia..._ _The stars slip over Lenny's manic, waxen face...... I know them all, they used, I used to think they were talking to..._

'I-I can see—'

'—Sydney..? What can you see? What are you--?'

I blink, try to find Melanie, try to focus on her voice, but it's muffled; try to keep my eyes on her face but the air is warping and twisting like a fairground mirror.

'Something's weird, something's...I think it's David—' Panic slices through my chest; comes out in a puff of fog from my lips. _'Melanie?'_

But there's just—

Silence. 

'...Fuck.' I whisper, eyes ticking around me.

Everything seems frozen. Or. Not frozen: out of sync. Stuck in pause: smudged and blurring and jerky.

'David? David, is this you?' I ask into the quiet. The stars have slipped free of all Cary's monitors: they drift around me in a lazy waltz, like snow in a snow globe.

'David?'

I twist on the balls of my feet. But it feels like moving through gelatine. Like I'm some crooked specimen preserved, dead and running, in Formaldehyde.

'I'm here too.' I say, and my voice comes out flat, swallowed by the walls. 'Sydney. I'm here too...'

Then: from near my feet comes the only sound; the incongruous creak of a battered old rocking horse. And Lenny, nudging it back and forth, back and forth, her eyes sunk into her head, yellow as poison and laughing, a harbinger of an apocalypse on the back of a kids' toy.  When she opens her mouth she's staring straight at me and I feel her words ricocheting against the inside of my skull:

_They're coming and they're gonna kill you_

'No.' I hiss back at her, but I don't feel my mouth open. And I'm David again, I know I am, even though I can look down and see my own hands, my own feet.

 _'_ This is just my – it’s not _real._ ' I protest, in a voice that is both mine and his somehow; both of us at the same time. The stars are swirling closer and I push my knuckles against my mouth. I know this pain, I know this pain— _god—_ heat curling in my fingers, in my belly—

'–It’s – I told him, don’t cut my meds, but he did, and now I’m—' I shake my head; I'm babbling, but the stars are sticking to my eyeballs, to my lips, filling my throat—

'—it’s a delusion. All of it! _None of this is rea—!_ '

I hear the far away clatter of plastic and metal, but I don't feel anything under the hand that smashes the bedside lamp against the wall of Amy's basement; the hand that knocks the lab trolley flying, grasping for solidity as the floor slides out from under me like a magic trick.

_Whoops. And there you go, Frigid Bridget_

'Sydney?'

The world restarts, jerks back into motion. The stars hurl themselves away, sinking back into their places once more and Melanie is staring at me, the first lines of real concern etched across her forehead. Her words come from miles back:

'Sydney? What was that, what did you see?'

The ice is gone. Lenny's gone. David's gone. The pain—The pain, it's...

'Oh— well that's not good.' I hear Cary's tinny voice somewhere else beyond me; try and refocus but my eyes still feel like they belong in someone else's face...

'...They've deleted David's files from Clockworks' systems. Or at least, blocked us getting at them.'

'They can't trace that back here?'

'No, no...At least, y'know...they couldn't last time...'

I reach out for the steadying edge of a table, waving a hand to fend off Ptonomy's grasp, the floor still spinning under me

_1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila, FLOOR_

'...David, I...He's... he's at his sister's house.' I drag the sentence together like Lego bricks: 'Amy. Amy's house, I saw it. I don't know how, there's... And there's another...there's something else there...'

I squeeze my eyes shut again, biting my lips together as a sudden wave of bile rises in my throat, cold sweat prickling my forehead

_They're coming for you bro. They're comin' and they're gonna kill you_

I drop my chin onto my chest.  _Come on Barrett, breathe, breathe_.

'Something else was there?’ Melanie presses ‘With David?'

I nod ‘It's...'

_In the wall, sliced in half, burst open like a ripe peach and dripping on the tiles_

'—Something...' I stare into Melanie’s cool eyes, trying to make her understand. 'There's something there with him, I don't know, it _looks_ like his friend but it’s not...he's not safe. He's not safe, I need to go to him.'

Melanie's face barely flickers. She glances back at Cary:

'She was in his body for twenty minutes.'

‘...Could be enough. Could be all he needs. Especially if there's a...connection...already. All that residual energy shooting about...'

'It was longer than that.' Ptonomy interrupts, thumb pressed to his mouth. 'Longer than twenty minutes. Probably close on an hour.'

Rudy grimaces. ‘Enough time to plant pretty much anything he wanted to, if he’s that powerful—'

Everyone jumps as I slam my hand down once again on the lab trolley:

'Will someone tell me what's going on?' I snap.

I glower round at the huddle of unfamiliar faces. Strangers. Freaks who chucked me in the back of their car and don’t seem fazed at all by the girl who can pull different bodies on and off easy as a rain jacket.

‘Oh my god,’ Kerry lets out a sigh of frustration, levering herself back to her feet: ‘can we go and get David already? This is so _boring_.’

‘Yes.’ Melanie snaps back into action, turns to me, and I get the feeling she’s made some kind of decision: ‘Sydney—’

‘—I need to go to David.’ I reiterate. ‘He’s in danger and he _needs_ me—’ I know this is true. I _know_ it.

‘You can’t. I’m sorry, but D3 are looking for you too now; I can’t spare enough people to keep you both safe.’

‘I can keep myself safe—’

Melanie shakes her head: ‘Not from D3.’ She lifts a hand, as if to squeeze my elbow, but stops herself abruptly, fingers flexing in the empty air. ‘We’re bringing David here. You’ll see him soon.’ She adds, almost kind. ‘For now; go with Ptonomy.’

‘’Go’ where—?’ I protest, but Melanie has already turned away:

‘Kerry, Rudy: take those coordinates as a starting point, track him down. Keep an eye out for D3—they obviously know it’s David we’re looking for.’

‘Do you want us to make contact?’

‘Same as before. We’re running out of time to be sensitive...’

As Rudy and Kerry sweep from the lab, Ptonomy steps over to me, taking Melanie’s place, hands thrust into his pockets. I glower at him:

'I’m not going anywhere.’ I tell his dark, amused gaze. ‘I want. To stay.’ But the man remains unmoved. Just shrugs:

'Nah. It'll be dull down here, all computers and shit.’ He glances back at Melanie and Cary, already refocused on the blinking bank of monitors. ‘Come on, Sydney Barrett. Let's show you around. Find out some more about that telepathic boyfriend of yours.’

I blink. I must have misheard:

‘...Telepathic?’

Ptonomy looks at me. His mouth twists into a vaguely apologetic smile:

‘...Right. Knew we’d forgotten something.’

 


	3. Clozapine and Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _'I mean. What would I say? 'Bring her back, my boyfriend's in there'?'_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Syd reluctantly teams up with the Summerlanders to help get a handle on David and his misfiring abilities. It doesn't mean that anything has to make _sense_ though.

The air is so...clean. I breathe deep; in through my nose, out through my mouth, like a distance runner. I swear I can feel every oxygen molecule skipping over the surface of my tongue.

'You should probably get some sleep.' Ptonomy had suggested lightly, hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his cardigan. I shrugged back at him:

'...I'm gonna stay out here for a while.'

The sun was just starting to slide behind the trees, throwing purple shadows across the forest floor. For a moment I thought Ptonomy was going to protest; but in the end he trudged back towards the base without a word, and I turned my head to listen until the crunch of his footsteps faded into silence.

The green I'd seen beckoning to me from the porthole of Melanie's office is everywhere. Bright, healthy young trees stretching up into the sky. Above them, a canopy of wide leaves shelter us from the outside world. A forest planted within a forest. A hiding place. Safety, even.

I lean back against the trunk of an old fir, its silvery bark solid against my spine. The crickets are starting to sing in the creeping dusk. I bite my lips tight together: crickets?  _Really_? City. Suburbs. Mental hospital... It's been a long time since I've heard  _crickets_.

I peer through the haze of branches, trying to make out some hint of the Outside. A straight edge. A Stop sign. The familiar mosaic of bricks and mortar. But there's nothing. Nothing but the smell of chlorophyll and warm earth and the stiff ache of my limbs uncurling like after a long hibernation, heart fluttering in my chest like a moth.

 

**O**

 

So. My boyfriend's a telepath.

He's not even the only one.

Turns out, Ptonomy can read minds too; just in a different kind of way.

'Think of it as showing us around.' Melanie suggests, her mouth tilting. 'We'll see what you see. It's a visit; not an extraction.'

I stare flatly at her: 'I'm not sure I get the difference.'

'The difference is, you're in charge.' Ptonomy interjects. 'We're just looking, not  _taking_.'

'Just wandering around in my memories?'

'You don't have to let us.' Melanie stresses. She’s lost her long white coat and she looks slightly less Wachowski steampunk; but her neat fingernails are tapping a tattoo against the polished surface between us and I get the feeling she's anything but relaxed.

'But you’re the only person here who knows David, and what he’s capable of.' She holds my gaze. 'Help us understand what happened at the hospital. Please, Sydney.'

I twine my gloves around my fingers in my lap. The table we're sitting at is hexagonal, steel rods thrust up in the places where normal people might put knives and forks. It's the only piece of furniture in the room, which is entered via a regular office door but is almost totally constructed from glimmering plate glass and surrounded by the upright trunks of oppressive evergreen forest. 'Summerland' Ptonomy called it as he showed me around, and his mouth had twitched at the incredulous arch of my eyebrow: 'Yeah, I know.'

Now, I look across the table at him. Try to see past the languorous intelligence glittering in his dark eyes.

'You'll see what I saw?' I repeat.

He nods. 'Just as you saw it. We don't go anywhere you don't want us to go.'

'...I've heard that before.'

They both look at me then, but I shake my hair away from my face and plant my feet more squarely into the carpet beneath my chair: 'What do I do?'

'Just, hold on,' Ptonomy says, indicating the handles in front of me. 'Both hands. And don't let go— you might feel kinda nauseous,' he warns 'just for a minute...Totally normal.'

Carefully, leaving my gloves in my lap, I curl my hands around the metal rods. Beside me, Ptonomy and Melanie do the same.

Outside, the yellow eyes in the trees blink.

It's like being thrown out of an airlock. Suddenly I'm gasping for oxygen, my torso smashed into atoms, my skin dragged from my bones and turned inside-out—

—but it's just a second. The next, I'm staggering to stay on my feet, the thick pile of Summerland's carpet replaced under my boots with the familiar geometric tiling of Clockworks' day room.

' _Shi—_ '

'You're okay.' Ptonomy's voice comes, soothing, closer than I expect it.

'The disorientation's just your senses re-adjusting. We haven't physically moved an—'

'—Oh shut-up.' I snap, hands on my knees, fighting to get air back into my lungs: 'We're in my memory,  _I know_.'

We're in my memory. That's Ptonomy's mutant ability: he can lay people's memories out like a map in front of him. Step inside them. See every detail, every whorl of a moment. Not  _thoughts_ ; just memories—apparently that's important. He'd told me all this as he'd shown me around Summerland's labs and classrooms, and I'd just looked at him and pronounced  _'creepy as fuck'_ — which I guess it would be, for someone who didn't spend as much time popping in and out of other people's bodies as I do.

'This is the hospital?' Melanie asks, from my other side. I follow her gaze as she takes in the sprawling, open-plan recreation area: the rounded corners and white-clad nurses; blank-eyed bodies slumped over the furniture in their matching tracksuits and soft-soled shoes.

'What gave it away?' I reply dryly. But Melanie ignores me.

'…How long were you here for?'

'I thought you had my records?'

'We have  _David_ 's records.' She corrects, and her expression doesn't shift at all.

She takes a few steps forward, examining this room that's been sketched out of my brainwaves. Ptonomy and I follow, and it's a few metres before I realise the reason my footsteps sound so weird on the tiled floor is that they don't sound of anything at all.

'...How can you see memories of a room that I wasn't even in?' I ask quietly, my fingers passing straight through the rich, glossy green leaves of some incongruous air plant.

Ptonomy shrugs. 'Your brain takes in alot more information than you're consciously aware of. Situations like this? A room you're just about to enter? Half of it's your brain being clever and filling in the gaps; the other half is it processing sensory information you didn't need to notice first time round.' His voice sounds distracted, and I glance over to realise he's stopped in front of Rusty, and the ubiquitous string of milky saliva that dangles helplessly from his mouth to the wet patch in his lap.

'...How long  _were_  you in here?'

'Three months.' I admit, feeling a sudden hot rush of protectiveness for Rusty–and Risotto Tim and Alvarez and all the others—that takes me by surprise. Aside from David, I'd tried very hard to avoid getting to know my fellow in-patients. 'What, did you think they put people in mental hospitals to help them get better?'

Ptonomy straightens up: 'Y'know what? This is not actually the first time I've been in a psych ward, and I've seen alot worse.'

I open my mouth to reply— but suddenly my whole body spasms, like I've stuck my fingers in an electric socket.

'Sydney?'

But I'm frozen, watching in horror as another form steps out of my skin: grubby tracksuit and black hair, headphones clamped over her head, smirking needles at music no-one else can hear.

'—What the  _hell_ —?'

'—It's ok.' Ptonomy replies, raising calming hands, and I realise that the Lenny that just walked out of me is just a memory. This morning's memory, even. A Clockworks native, just like everyone else in here.

Electricity prickles at the skin of my arms.

Red lips. Black eyes.

_look here's our guts spilled on the_

_floor_ —

— _What she did_

                      — _What she did_

 _when she was you_ —

'Shit...' The word crumbles into my cupped hands, as I watch Lenny's scrawny figure drift away from me, jigging vaguely from foot to foot.

'Do you know her?' Melanie's voice asks softly, by my ear.

I nod, jerkily: '...She was David's friend. She...Lenny... I think they came in together.'

The three of us watch the black-haired woman wind her dazed path through the room, unnoticed and un-noticing; crazy and harmless.

My breathing begins to level again.

'David's friend?' Melanie echoes. 'Where is she now?'

I look at her. But the answer I can't put into words is waylaid by the approach of a brisk pair of footsteps. As one, Melanie, Ptonomy and I turn to see Doctor Kissinger, my psychiatrist, stride into view from the direction of Clockworks' dorm rooms, trailing a tall pale girl behind him, incongruous in her outdoor clothing: red coat and black gloves, boots clipping against the day room tiles like a nervy blackbird.

Sydney Barrett.

Me.

My breath comes out shakier than I expected: 'Shit that's weird.'

We follow Kissinger and Sydney as they cleave a path through the drift of in-patients. The inmates part like the Red Sea before the doctor, keen to keep out of his psychoanalytical eye-line. But we move in the opposite direction, stepping closer, and I can see Sydney–me, the other me—as her steps begin to drag, sharp eyes darting around the room. Searching. Desperate.

'You're looking for David.' Ptonomy says, and it's barely a question. I can see his eyes following Sydney's, equally sharp: 'Where was he?'

I press my lips together.

'—Don't forget, you have an appointment with Doctor Schubert on Thursday...'

Kissinger's reminder rings above the normal murky murmurings of the day room. He has his staff pass poised over the security lock at the door, but his pompous voice trails off as he looks back and sees Sydney, darting away from him and sliding into Lenny's path instead.

I creep closer, listening in.

'Where is he?' Sydney asks. I ask. And just like before, Lenny blinks; pulls the headphone from her right ear:

'Who, the kid?'

Sydney nods tightly. Lenny lets her headphone pop back against her ear. 'Oh y'know, climbing a mountain...' Her mouth drifts opens as her eyes close, immediately back in her music. 'Got his crampons...'

I watch the other Syd's face fall. She casts another quietly despairing glance around; but David's nowhere to be seen.

I fold my own arms over my chest.

'Was he supposed to meet you?'Ptonomy asks, as we watch Sydney move unhappily back to Kissinger's side. There's a bleep as he swipes his pass through the door lock. Red. Green. The door snaps open.

'We—'

But I don't finish, interrupted just like this morning by Lenny changing her mind, scrambling back after the other Sydney's sharp footsteps.

'—Hey would you, I gotta—' She babbles, and for the first time I notice the cable of her headphones dangling loose beneath the hem of her sweater, attached to nothing. 'Hold on—' She tries in vain to keep Sydney's attention: 'they've got this candy bar, it's new—'

I see Sydney's exasperation scrawled clear across her face. Behind her, Kissinger has pulled the door to again— in case any of the crazies escape— but Lenny remains oblivious, shaping candy bars in the air with her hands:

'—I saw it on TV, with-with nougat and chocolate and this, like, crispy wafer?—'

And then, in the distance, I hear the footsteps. Rubber-soled sandshoes. Slapping hard against the tiles.

'Could you—if you could buy me one and—'

Sydney hears them too. Lifts her eyes over Lenny's head.

'—Like, mail it to me?'

'No...' I murmur; just as the other Sydney shouts the same word, throwing out her hands as David suddenly appears, barrelling through the eddy of in-patients, panting, hand outstretched—

I close my eyes.

I don't need Ptonomy's power to remember this: the last time I saw David, and all the crushing  _love_  on his face; hair messed, pupils wide and black like sheets pulled tight on Clozapine and  _hope_.

'David...' Melanie breathes behind me as we watch that stupid,  _stupid_  man lean in and press his lips to Sydney's, stuck open in an 'o' of horror.

Of course, I've never seen it from the outside. Maybe you don't see it at all if you're not looking for it. But their lips meet, David and Sydney's, and where their bodies touch they crumple like cut puppets.

The room around me shudders, tilts.

'I thought this was just a memory?' I snap at Ptonomy. 'It is!' He yells back, and I see that he and Melanie are staring around at the juddering walls just like I am.

And then—

Sydney and David are thrown apart, to the floor— and I cram my hands against my ears as voices— dozens, sounds like  _hundreds_  of voices, crash over us like a tsunami, like a roll of thunder, panicked and furious and so, so  _loud_.

' _What's happening_?' Ptonomy shouts, whole body braced against the sudden hurricane of noise. I stare at the other Sydney through eyes suddenly pockmarked with black holes; at her dazed and limp body, yanked back to its feet by Kissinger, dragged out of harm's way. I stare at David, orderlies locked around his arms and Lenny pushing warningly against his chest; at his mouth screaming and screaming and no sound coming out.

'It's David...' I whisper, watching his body twist and turn, the force of all the voices making my knees buckle.

The other Sydney is hustled from the room, the double doors slamming hard behind her.

 _'What_?!'

'It's  _David_!' I turn and shout back at Ptonomy and Melanie over the cacophony of noise raking at my face.

'I told you—‘

And I don't know why, but I feel a laugh bubbling up in my throat, the sound rough and furious, my eyes wide.

‘I don't like people touching me!'

And, overwhelmed, my stomach heaves, and I retch up all over the floor.

 

**O**

 

‘Ow.’

'Sorry.’ Cary grimaces, smoothing an antiseptic wipe over the tiny bead of red in the crook of my arm where the needle had just been. He presses a pad of cotton into the same spot: ‘…And just, hold that there.’

‘You think I’m crazy.’ I guess, watching him dig out a sheet of labels from the clutter of circuitry and paperwork on the countertop. ‘…Because they said that. In Clockworks: that I was crazy. My doctor said it… I thought this place was something else.’

‘…In my experience, ‘crazy’ is not a helpful term.’ Cary replies carefully, marking up the tiny vial now filled with my blood. ‘For now, I just want to check what kind of medication might still be floating around in your system. You said you heard these voices before; when you were in David’s body?’

‘Yeah.’ I peel the cotton pad back from my skin, examining the tiny graze in my arm underneath. ‘He’s a telepath, right?’ It’s stopped bleeding already, barely visible.

‘And now? Do you still hear them now that you’re…Back?’

‘’Back’?’ I repeat, dry as dust.

‘In – I mean, in your body. Your original—’ He gestures vaguely at me; starts again. ‘It’s just that sometimes, with powers like this—a sharing—there’s a connection formed. And it doesn’t tend to be clean cut. Especially, y’know; psychically…’

A laugh catches in my throat.

‘What?’

I roll my eyes: ‘’psychically’.’

Some faint wry curve flickers at the corner of Cary’s mouth:

‘You’re fine with ‘telepath’, but ‘psychically’ freaks you out?’

I open my mouth, but think better of it. I know what he means; these arbitrary lines. It’s been such a weird day already.

‘You said, you knew someone.’ I remind him. ‘Before. Someone who had powers like me.’

‘…I did?’

I raise my eyebrows and Cary immediately acquiesces, slipping his ballpoint compulsively back into the pocket of his lab coat. 'Sorry. I did, yes.’ 

He looks me for a moment, considering. I can see the greenish lights of the bright corridor outside wavering in his glasses. 

'...And she wasn't totally like you. She didn't swap bodies; not directly. She... acquired energies. Life forces. And mutations. Borrowed them, I guess.'

I press my lips together, breathing in a long breath. I feel the hairs on my arms stand on end.

'And did they...'I search for a word. 'Hang around?'

'Like your hour as David?' 

'Yeah.' 

There's a series of beeps from one of the monitors behind Cary's head and he wheels his lab stool across to squint at the cascade of pixels blossoming on-screen. 

'...It took her a long time to master her abilities.'

'But she did?'

'Oh.' Cary glances back at me 'She really did, yes. She was one of the bravest people I've known.'

The 'was' hangs in the air between us like a bitter wisp of carbon monoxide. I pick the cotton ball away from my skin and drop it in the trash, pulling my long black gloves back on over my hands, up my wrists, over my forearms. I wriggle my fingers, feeling the cotton slip into well-worn creases between my knuckles. 

'Is it feeling ok? Your arm?'

I nod. 'That's David isn't it?' I tilt my head towards another screen, a squat fuzzy ten-incher, all knobs and switches and the picture filled with fluttering dots like pinned-down butterflies. 'The red. And Rudy and Kerry. The red's mutants and the white's--'

'--Um, everyone else. Yeah.' Cary finishes, following my gaze: 'I just like to, y'know; keep an eye...'

'...Is he ok?' I ask; and maybe Cary hears something in my voice, because he reaches over, twisting one of the dials, and the picture zooms in and in and in. 

'For now. He seems stable. Nothing unexpected. No one.'

I lean my elbows on my knees, peering at the staticky dots. When I blink, ghosts of green and purple swim in the darkness behind my eyelids. 

_'—Yeah you did, don’t blame her, she was just—'_

I wince, my fingernails digging into my arms.

'He was on everything, in there.' I say quietly: ‘Seroquel, Thorazine, Clozapine…' David's cup of green pills and my cup of white. 'He was a lifer. They weren't ever letting him out.'

'He'll be safe here.'

I feel my mouth tighten. In the periphery of my vision I watch Cary watching me with a familiar shuttered sympathy in his face before getting back to his feet.

"Sydney, it's...He will.'

 

**O**

 

Slowly, I lower myself down, lying back across the covers. Turn my hands over. There’s no-one else here so I have my gloves off, laid out neatly on the bedside table, and the sheets under my fingers are cooling in the growing darkness.

I part my lips and draw in a looooong, slooooow breath. I spread my arms wide, drawing two symmetrical arcs outwards from the edge of my hips to the perpendicular, until I’m stretched out as far as I can reach, walking my fingertips right to the edge of the mattress. A cross. A crucifix. Some god hanging there. Or wings maybe. Although I’m thinking insect wings: filmy, laced with veins and cartilage. Probably not feathers; I’ve never been in to feathers.

It was all single beds in Clockworks. It’s been months since I’ve had this much room. It feels…weird.

I pull my arms back into my torso and cross them neatly over my chest, watching them rise and fall at the edge of my peripheral vision as I breathe deep breaths full of lint and furniture polish and bold sickly night jasmine.

In.   
Out.   
In

                                                                    constellations                                     Cassio      p                         Urs   a    eopia                  M

                                                                         Ja.

                                                                                                                                My dad I think

Out.

Melanie left me with a pile of towels and a pair of freshly ironed one-size-fits-all pyjamas laid out on the white plastic chair by the door, but I can’t force myself to unfold them just yet. Or put the light on. The glow that glances against the edges of the furniture comes mostly from the hallway outside; a bright shaft of amber interrupted by the occasional shadows of slippered feet padding along the corridor. I hear their voices too; kids mostly, but some adults. My age. Older. All these people just…  _wandering_. To the bathroom, to the showers, back to their bedrooms. To the labs, to the cafeteria, to the sitting room, the art room, to the library.

In.

David’s out there. With his sister, it seems like. Safe—for a bit at least. And for the first time, I realise: we’re both  _free_. We’re both  _out_. Out in the world together. I mean, not  _together_  yet, but.

Out.

 

In.

 

Out.

 

**O**

 

We’re back at the hexagonal table; Ptonomy on my right, Melanie on my left. My stomach is whimpering, warningly, but at breakfast (in the long airy cafeteria that looks like some Alpine ski lodge) I kept down a mug of scaldingly hot tea that tasted like daffodils and three slices of toast, so Melanie only made a perfunctory objection when I said I was ready to go back in. Ptonomy didn't say anything at all.

I plant the soles of my shoes square in the carpet underneath my body and try to level my breathing. Try to remember something of how Dr Kissinger used to coach me...  
  
_Breathe in; feel the breath rising, from the core of the Earth, up into your toes, into your feet, into your calves...  
  
_ 'It gets too much again, you let me know, okay?' Ptonomy's saying. There's probably concern there, but I ignore it: his voice clangs against my ears like a dime thrown at a soda can. 'Preferably, y'know: before the throwing-up.'  
  
_...Feel the breath in your hips, in your stomach, up into your chest...  
  
_ Melanie look at me, questioning. The eyeliner that wings her eyes is solid again; careful, no-nonsense black.  
  
I nod. As one, we tighten our hands around the metal rods.  
  
_Into your shoulders now, your throat...and_ hold...  
  
My stomach lurches, but I swallow the nausea back down. Breathe through my nose. Psychosis? Just keep breathing. Hallucinations? Just breathe. Suicidal?

Just. Keep. Breathing.

This time, we've skipped forward a bit, like my memories really are just old video tape. We've jumped past the placid jumble of the Day Room: the regular click-clack of the ping-pong ball, the hospital-cornered orderlies gliding around their well-worn circuits. Under Ptonomy's guidance, all those minutes flash and flicker around us until the walls begin to shudder again—too jerky and too fast—and I curl my fingernails into my arms and watch Sydney Barret and David Haller as they meet in choppy double-time in the centre of the room; as their bodies touch, crumple—

'Now.' I say, feeling Melanie open her mouth behind me. 'Now.  _Now.'_

At my word, everything slows.

Instantaneous. It's always been like that: the switch. First time, it was a shiver and it was over, and I hardly noticed. Until...

It's the same now.

I raise my eyebrows:

'...This the best we're gonna get?'

I step closer; stare at David and Sydney splayed in front of me, falling to the ground like twin tin puppets, jerky monochrome characters in some Victorian zoetrope.

Ptonomy looks back at me, red-white-black red-white-black of the disturbed memory strobing across his cheekbones.

'You wanna do it?' He asks.

Melanie ignores both of us, stepping straight through Doctor Kissinger's left side and kneeling down to examine the two slowly tumbling bodies.

I take the chance to properly look around, examining the scene that the other me has set in motion. Circling us, patients and orderlies are balancing at impossible angles, shielding their faces from the other bodies suddenly punched backwards towards them. A few metres away, one of the nurses is half-ducked behind the counter at the drugs station, startled ponytail flying upwards into a straight exclamation point. To my left, I see Lenny again, a clear ring of white around her dark irises, hands out, grabbing for David’s arm. The voices have stopped. Or, no, they haven’t  _stopped_. But they come now as wound-down cassette tapes, a low bass throbbing under my shoes and scratching at my ears: language-less. Indistinguishable.

'So now,' Melanie’s words are all the clearer in amongst the creepy ambient panic. 'David's mind is in your body, and your mind is inside David?' She points between the two distorted faces, heads thrown sideways under the psychic whiplash. I nod and the other woman turns back:

'And does he know it, right now? Does David know what happened?'

I crouch beside her, watching Sydney's body as it slow-motion plummets towards the floor, black-gloved hands splaying out to catch herself. I try and see the differences. Do I move like that? Or is that all David, suddenly off-kilter with an unexpectedly female centre of gravity?

'I knew.' I nod towards David's body, and his mouth, widening inch-by-inch into a black ‘O’. '...I tried to...shout them back, but they hustled David—Sydney--out of there before I could... I mean—' I shrug, twisting back to the other woman's sharp gaze. 'What  _would_  I say? 'Bring her back, my boyfriend's in there'?'

The edge of Melanie's lips curls.

'You didn't talk about your powers before? With David?'

I snort: 'And make him think I was really crazy?'

I turn back to David's face, ignoring the unexpected tugging at the corners of my mouth.

His cheeks are still flushed pink from his clumsy sprint down the corridor, sweat glistening at his hairline; in the shallow cleft between his nose and dip of his top lip. I remember what it felt like; being in this body. Being in this body  _right now,_ skin fizzing from lack of sleep, lack of meds; eyes gummy but still that bright hopeful cobalt blue, the taste of Sydney's mouth—my own mouth— pressed against three words on my cracked, pink lips...

I reach out my hand; let my gloved fingers hover just a moment, above the spot in David's chest where his heart is. Pumping fast with adrenaline, horror-struck, exhausted... frightened like a little girl.

'Sydney...'

I frown, ignoring the soft warning in Melanie's voice. Slowly, I let my fingers fall; watch as the image of my hand sinks into the image of his body, not there at all.

'– Um, Sydney Barrett.'

Wait.

My head snaps around and I find Melanie's eyes, inches away, just as wide as mine:

'...Did you hear that?'

 _'–_ I'm sorry, what do you mean you've no record of...David?'

As one, Melanie and I scramble back to our feet. Melanie throws a questioning glance towards Ptonomy, who raises his hands:

'It's not me.' He assures her 'And it's not Sydney. That's...her memory's uninterrupted, that's something el—Sydney!'

But I'm already gone, chasing the source of the voice through my own splintering memories right out into the reception corridor, the other two just a few steps behind me.

Out here, everything is just as it was in the Day Room. The walls pulse in and out of colour, the memory all smeared like a fly smashed against a window-pane. Still in the doorway—we pass straight through them—Kissinger hustling Sydney to safety, her face turned back over her shoulder, hair a slash of pale blond across her eyes. They're dissolving, almost transparent, bleeding all round the edges. Three metres away, a pair of irritated-looking orderlies are stuck like wasps in amber, mid-sprint on their way to the scene. At the desk, the receptionist's fist lands heavily against her panic button and stays there. Stays there. Stays there.

In front of her, nervous, hands shoved into his pockets: David.

But not memory David. Not David like we just saw him.

My chest contracts so tightly it hurts.

He has new clothes, grey and tailored. New shoes. Hair parted where it's meant to be; almost tidy. As I stare, the colours of him shimmer in and out of focus, like an old analogue TV set that needs re-tuned. Whole planes of him are see-through, unfinished, like worn fabric.

But he's there. Moving. Talking. To someone on the front desk that I can't see.

He's  _there._

'Sydney be careful...'

But Melanie's just behind me. Together, we pad closer towards the apparition. Towards the David who seems more solid than anyone else here, and his voice, ringing clear and familiar through the staticky tangle of my mangled memory.

His eyes are fixed, unblinking, like he's listening. He curls his fingers into fists by his side:

'...He was here for...That was six years?'

I swallow hard, the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up.

'The last...I visited...'

'This is real.' I murmur, and it's not a question. 'This is now.' I turn back to Ptonomy and Melanie, who both meet my eyes, nonplussed. '...How can this be now?'

I glance around me; at the corridor still caught in its slow-mo earthquake, the streams of grey and red and black and white dripping across the distended concrete. Me and Melanie and Ptonomy; incongruously technicolour beside the other ghostly figures still high-tailing it down the corridor.

Melanie can't take her eyes from him, her teeth pressed into her bottom lip:

'Before, in the lab,' she asks sharply 'Is this what you saw? Something like this?'

I nod, hesitantly though. It wasn't quite like this. I take another step closer. He looks different out of his Clockworks' uniform. Older.

'David.' I say.

In the periphery of my eye, I see Ptonomy's hand jerk:

'Sydney, don--'

'— _David._ ' I say, louder this time. Clearer.

He turns.

 

**O**

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 they say I was n ever

                                                                                                                                                     here                                                                          

                                                                                                                                                                                        Wher                                                                                       ydne

 

‘—bolted,’

‘What?’

‘Saw the car, bolted…Don’t worry, we’ve got an eyeball… But he’s definitely getting twitchy…’

Who

here issss

Something's, sticking...My shirt is. Sticking to my chest; soaked with cold sweat.

I don’t know how long I’ve been out for, words running over and over each other in my head. Over and over and…

Oh. Sunlight, green. Yellow—

‘Hey.’

Tha…eye…watching…what…watch—

Beside my ear.

I turn my head.

Slowly, Ptonomy’s features resolve into focus. He’s sat next to me on the carpet, holding out a glass.

‘It's okay.' He says. 'Drink. Get some hydration in you.’

I look at him; try to reach out my hand to take the water... It seems to take a long time for the idea to travel from my brain to my fingers.

‘…What happened?’ I ask. I tilt the glass; let the cold liquid seep into my mouth.

A muscle in Ptonomy’s jaw twitches. ‘We’re still trying to work it out. For my guess, too many personalities in one head.’

‘...Where’s David?’

‘Where we saw him.’ Melanie’s voice answers, somewhere above me. ‘At Clockworks. Or just leaving Clockworks.’

I swallow, the water chasing away the stale sourness stuck to the back of my throat. ‘He was looking for me.’ I say. I know this; I know this like he’d said it straight to my face. Straight to camera.

Smiiiile!

‘…Maybe.’ Melanie sounds less convinced.

The carpet underneath me vibrates: Cary comes into view, dragging one of the chairs around to peer more closely into my eyes. Before he even opens his mouth, I catch sight of the length of medical tubing in his hand.

‘Don’t you even  _dare_  hook me up to anything.’ I warn, slopping water down my chin, and Cary immediately holds up his hands, defensive:

‘It’s just, for your blood pressure. Promise.’

He wraps the Velcro cuff carefully around my bicep, ignoring my glowering. He's got surgical gloves on, but I can still feel the coolness of his hands against my too-hot skin.

‘You lost consciousness just as David disappeared.’ Ptonomy explains, 'Rudy and Kerry were right outside. They saw him go in, they saw him come out again.'

'Whatever it was he saw in there, it definitely spooked him.'

The other voice—Rudy's-- comes out of nowhere, and my heart jumps up into my gullet before I realise it's not telepathy; it's just the speaker-phone, high up on the tabletop. Cary winces at the sudden spike on my BP meter.

'Yeah, banging into the psychic echo of your missing girlfriend'll do that.' Ptonomy suggests dryly.

Red white black grey red  white black grey red

…What?

'Or maybe it's something to do with  _voluntarily going back into a mental hospital_.' I reply tightly. My voice feels like it’s trembling. 'Or you guys, creeping around after him like the fucking CIA.'

'Whatever it was,' Rudy comes again, bracingly. 'It feels like we're running out of time...'

'Still higher than it should be...' Cary muses, unwinding the monitor reticently from my arm. ‘Can you get up?'

I glare at him, tugging my sleeve down. Getting up's the last thing I feel like, the floor still slipping, buttery and porous, under my weight. But I do it anyway, pushing my hands back against the wall to steady myself.

I realise: we're still in the sparkling glass rectangle of Ptonomy's memory-work room. Melanie is a dark silhouette standing by the window. With all the sunlit greenery beyond her, I can't quite make out the expression on her face.

'What you saw in the hospital.' She asks 'Was it like that before, in the lab?'

This time, I shake my head. 'No, it...' I try to start; but none of my thoughts seem to be making it to the right neurons. It takes a while.

'Before... it was like I  _was_  David. I was him and me at the same time.  _I_  was talking but it was also him. He moved but it was also...me. _'_ I turn to Cary and Ptonomy. 'How can I be in two places at once?'

Cary opens his mouth, but it's Kerry's voice that comes first, drawling over the phone-line.

'Kinda basic.' She sounds amused.

'Well, ok, there's a good example.' Cary turns, pointing towards the speaker-phone 'That's ...Kerry, out there? She's, kind of... Part of me.'

I blink: 'What?'

'It's part of our...abilities...She can come and go and-and do her own thing and... I know what she's doing and she knows what I'm doing and most of the time we're together but...' He drops his hands back to the table-top: '...Actually, somehow it never gets easier to explain.'

I stare at him. '...You're shitting me.'

Kerry's voice: 'What?'

'Really not.' Cary looks almost apologetic.

 _'You're shitting me--_ '

'–But this time  _we_  saw David.' Ptonomy interrupts 'We all did. No third person. No body-swapping. He was just right there, in front of us.'

'Well you were all  _inside_  Sydney's head but, okay...' Cary frowns— diving right back into the science like he hadn't just explained the other half of his personality is a monosyllabic 20-year old girl: '...And just bear with me here: the meds are draining out of Sydney's system.' He looks back at me. 'For you that might not be such a huge thing. But with  _David..._  Well like you said, he’s been on everything; and for a long time—’

I'm still blinking: I can't seem to clear the black spots blooming in front of my eyes:

'—She's 'part of you'?' I repeat.

 _'Sydney—_ '

‘—he's been on pills since he was in high school.’ I confirm; and remember in an odd flash Cary's bank of computer monitors and the haunted, fuzzed-up photo pinned to the top of David's Clockworks file.

‘Right. But now he’s not.  _You’re_  not. Or, y’know: the levels are fluctuating. Clozapine, Quetiapin, Xanax, whatever, all alter brain chemistry. This’ll be the first time David’s been exposed to the full range of his powers in years; he’s out of practice controlling them. Telepathic abilities are…unpredictable… at best.’

‘But  _I’m_ not a telepath.’ I say, and internally sigh at how normal that word’s become in the last twenty-four hours.

‘But, you  _were._ ’ Cary replies. ‘Even just for an hour. You had David’s powers in your head, connecting you to him, connecting you to—everyone. Like I said before, bonds like that…it’s not clean-cut. It never is. Especially with your— the physical interchange of your bodies— and Ptonomy taking you back into your memories… Layer upon layer of connection.' He can't help illustrating it with his hands. 'Your bodies swapped back after an hour. But your minds are still disentangling. It’s taking time. It's messy _._ ’

I stare at him. Suddenly my bones feel very cold.

‘…Do you think he’s getting flashes of me? Does he know where I am?’

A dead silence settles over the room.

'We need to bring him in.' Melanie says eventually. 'Rudy, you're right, we're running out of time. Kerry—'

'—Can I use the tranq gun?

' _No_.'

I close my eyes.  _Breathe._

Still breathing Syd, after all this.

 _Bring him in_ … It sounds like wrangling a tiger. But all the same: relief rattles through me so hard it feels like my skin’s fighting to come loose from my bones.

 _David_? Inside my head, tentatively, I say his name:  _David. It’s me. It’s Sydney_.

He heard me before; I know he did. And if these mutant weirdos are right, he can hear me now, maybe; if he listens.

Maybe  _I_ can hear  _him._

The breath trickles out from between my lips.

'Look, I don't wanna...’ I think it’s Ptonomy’s voice. I can see him, gaining ‘...But am I the only one who remembers the three fire trucks and the ambulance that were on the scene when we tried to pick this guy up the first time?'

‘...Maybe the tranquilliser's not such a bad idea?’

Footsteps on concrete. Don’t walk too fast just…away. Straight line. That’s…I’m looking down at my feet. Weird how it’s still…Still all new, this breeze and everything. Weather.

‘Sure, that’s a swell way to look non-threatening.’

 _Shit_.

He’s walking; too fast, but maybe if he stays quiet. Get inside somewhere. No,  _David:_  they’re not the bad guys. David, it’s okay. Rudy and Kerry. Rudy. Kerry, they’re… What? Not

Not the bad guys—

— Cold for Spring. I mean maybe. It’s been a while. Just keep walking David, you’re fine. Belong. Look like you belong.

_Right behind you. Shitshtshitsh_

—No. No. It’s okay. It’s okay. Walk. Walk, don't run, don't run, you'll just draw attention to yourself... _Shit_.

…

What the fuck?

I prise my eyes apart, the sun hits them, blinds me for a moment and all the bodies around me are just wobbling shadows. I put my face in my hands.

‘Sydney?’

Voices, like from underwater.

‘I just,’ I turn to Ptonomy, not able to get the right words out. ‘It’s, can I have that water?’

He pushes it across the table-top and the sound is like the screech of car tyres.

 ‘No don’t run, he’ll just—’

‘Sydney?’

 _Sydney. God I need you. God, where—_?

I drag my glass close, the water sloshing over my gloves; I can feel it sinking through the fabric.

Black eyes like bullets. Long strides. Leave me alone  _leave me alone_  what the  _fuck_  have I done to  _you?_

‘There’s a car.’ I hear myself say, that tyre screech echoing in my ears. Melanie turns her head. For just a second; a yellow glint in her eyes. Or is that her hair?

Oh no. it’s not a car.

‘Melanie…’

‘…Sydn—?‘

‘—There’s a van.’ I can feel the blood draining out of my face like someone’s cut my jugular. ‘There’s a van.’

And they’re staring at me. All just staring, their three sets of eyes and

Running.

‘David…’

'I see it. I've got it.'

‘Oh god.’ I bury my head in my hands. ‘ _David_.’

‘No get him, shit— _shit,_  it’s D3, Melanie it’s, they’re— _shit_!’

‘I can get them—’

‘—No, Kerry—‘

The table shakes under my elbows; Melanie, slamming her hands down.

‘Rudy! What’s—?’

‘They’ve… _fuck_ …’ Rudy’s voice. A muffled smack like a hand against concrete. Breathing, breathing, sucking in air and all I can see now is blackness, hard breath crackling down the phone-line, punching zig-zags into the air, echoing inside my head, inside the dark. 

‘They’ve got him.’ Rudy’s voice comes again. Angry. Desolate.

‘Melanie… They’ve got him.’

 

**O**

 

Across the pillow, David’s irises swim with gold. ‘I’m getting out tomorrow.’

‘…What?’ It takes a minute. My voice doesn’t sound like mine. Too high; starlings in the dawn.  
  
A tiny apology ghosts his mouth. ‘Kissinger says I’m clean so, I get to go home.’

I curl my fingers in the skin-warmed sheet beneath me.

‘Good. That’s…That’s good.’

I _do_ mean it, but David can hear my thoughts—or that’s what they tell me— and he can hear how my heart is atrophying around the edges.

No choice though. That’s the thing about mental hospitals.

His mouth ticks into a smile. The same one I’ve sketched over and over again for eighty-seven days. I think I’ve almost got it now. ‘I’ll visit you.’ He says; promises. But I shake my head. In my brain, I put my fingers to his face.

‘No. I mean… Once you’re out you should start over. Forget.’

David just looks at me. Looks at me and looks at me as the birds begin chirruping in the dewy Spring dawn outside my safety-locked windows.

 _Don’t leave me here_. I think desperately, all at once. _Don’t leave me here alone_. But I say nothing. In the end it’s him, just a glaze of wetness in his eyes.

‘You gotta get better, okay..? So you can leave here too.’

 


	4. One blue, one brown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _‘Well, what then? We’re going into rescue my boyfriend from Shady Government Assholes Incorporated with nothing but darn good luck?’_
> 
> Decision-time. As David finds himself in more and more danger, Syd has to decide who she trusts to get him back; if anyone.  
>  Probably not anyone, tbh.

'Rudy, stand down, _don't_ engage.'

The meaning of Melanie's words creeps only sluggishly into my consciousness. The voices in my brain have contracted into a fat wasp of fear, crawling through my ear canal.

 _David_.

In my head, I keep saying his name, but it's just blackness; banging my fists against blackness:

 _David_ _DAVID_

'...Keep a trace on them.'

'--Yeah.'

The scrape of a chair being pushed back; the door pulled open and thumping shut again.

_David_

'You're not-' I force my head back up. The room around me is draining saturation like a submerged watercolour. '–You're not going after him? You _need_ to go after him...'

'Rudy and Kerry are on the ground.' Melanie reminds me stolidly 'They'll follow at a safe distance once we're sure they weren't spotted--'

'--Bullshit.' I blink back at her. 'That's _bullshit._..'

'Sydney,' Ptonomy, beside me 'we've done this kinda thing before; you've gotta trust us.'

'No I don't. They're dangerous: D3, Division 3, whatever, you keep saying that, and you're just letting them take him?'

'They _are_ dangerous.' Melanie reiterates. 'And _David_ is dangerous. This, right now, could easily get out of our control--'

'--He's not dangerous!' I repeat plaintively. 'He's...he's _David._ And he's scared, _god_ , he's just scared--'

Ptonomy presses his fingertips into the corners of his eyes:

'Right, and what did _you_ do with his powers when you were scared Sydney?' He snaps 'You started pulling reality apart like it was candyfloss. That's how 'not dangerous' your boyfriend is.'

I hold Ptonomy's glare. Feel numbness spreading outwards from my chest, trickling through my ventricles and veins and cells and clogging my throat up with ice.

'Sydn--'

'--I need. I need to go.' I tell them blankly.

Ptonomy makes a move as if to block me from the door. But I just glower at him:

'Don't. Touch me.'

His eyes tick to Melanie's over my head.

He gets out of the way.

 

I don't run-- my legs feel like lead, toes numb and stumbling--but I walk, as fast as I can, back along the same hallway they brought my up yesterday. I follow their polished flooring and the weird spindly murals painted like kindergarten voodoo over every other wall. I follow the warm, fuzzy, careful-you-don't-trip lighting, and the quirky-yet-sensible indoor succulents and the trail of classrooms and lab rooms and rec rooms and _fuck_ their open-plan, primary coloured, yoga retreat paradise. Fuck it. Clockworks was _just_ like this.

_David David David_

_S             e                                         y_

_David_

I rattle down the stairs, the steel ringing an ominous warning under my footsteps. Barge through the front doors and heave in a shaking breath as the warm summer air surges into my lungs. Sweet and heavy and _real._

Out.

In.

 

Out.

 

_David_

 

I take another breath, blinking in the sunlight. There are people out here, but only a few. They glance up, curious. Leisurewear. Sneakers. Nobody moves.

_That guy? He's crazy. And her? Crazy._

I don't slow down, striding towards the forest, heart still battering against my ribs.

They threw me in the back of their car-- that's not normal, is it? Or worse: I had David's face; they threw _David_ in the back of their car. A long-term mental patient, wandering the sidewalk, reeling from the voices battering his eardrums, and they bundled him into a car-ful of strangers.

My eyes are stinging. I scan the whispering mosaic of greenery in front of me and hang a right.

_David, it's Sydney._

I press out with my mind, forming words in my head, willing them beyond my neurons. I have no idea how this works: _telepathy_. But David...

_Find me, David. Let me find you._

I plunge deeper into the trees, clutching at branches, squeezing in close to the

mottled shadows. Every few metres a bird startles, bursting through the foliage.

I try and do the maths. Minutes ago, an hour ago, David was in Clockworks. Even if he'd walked fast-- even if that D3 van was tearing up the tarmac--they can't have gone far.

 _David_!

Fists. Blackness.

Let me out. Let me

Silence.

I push aside a curtain of spidery ferns; catch myself just before I step into a knot of thick root-work and felled branches. Squinting upwards into the shivering canopy, I try to get some bearing... but the trees are packed tight like a box of pencils, thick silver firs and creeping undergrowth. Against the white-blue sky, everything looks black.

'Fuckfuck _fuck_ ,' I curse out loud, desperate for some sound, any sound, but the words seem to get snatched away before they even leave my mouth. 'David...C'mon David give me something...Give--'

I try the breathing thing again.

Behind me: back to Summerland and all their crazy. Ahead: huge old pines slicing the sky to ribbons and a new line of hemlock, half as high, spindly and green and cowering underneath, obscuring everything below my head height.

I start, stop again. Turn.

'Straight on then.' I breathe. Straight on, a straight line, out the other side. They brought me in a car, I remind myself: the road can't be far away. Or is that water? Can I hear water?

Behind me, the trees thin: back to...No, but, that's... I just--

In my ears, a small noise. A hiss. A buzz. I blink down at the dark carpet of earth and pine needles under my boots.

'Come on Sydney.' I say it out loud, I feel my lips move...But it's like my face is buried, screaming into my pillow. I can't hear anything outside my own head. 'We're done with the panicking now. _Come_ on.'

Beneath my feet, the discarded pine needles tilt their heads towards me, grow legs, begin to scurry.

'Come on Syd--'

I glance once more up towards the sky, but the sun is out of my view, obscured by the trees.

When I look back, there's a man standing in front of me.

' _Sh--'_ I start backwards, stuffing my fist into my mouth.

But he doesn't see me. Or. He makes no sign of seeing me. He's just...standing. Attentive but idle, face impassive, dwarfed by the height of the forest around him.

Oh I'm done with these crazies. I'm _so_ done with them.

I swallow. Hard. 'Who are you?'

The man doesn't move. There's something in his hands, fiddling.

I step towards him.

'...Sydney.'

It's Melanie's voice. Behind me. A safe distance.

Well good for her.

I take another step, watching the man's bony, fidgeting hands:

'...Can you see him?' I ask.

Melanie hesitates. '...I can only see you Sydney.' She replies, words paper-thin. I can hardly hear her over the thump of my own heartbeat. '...Who can you see?'

I take another step: press my heel down into the spongy undergrowth, the arch of my foot, the ball, my toes; careful as I can.

'A man... A man just...Two, three metres in front of me. Just. There.' I tilt my head.

'A man.' Melanie repeats my words back to me, exactly like any good psych doctor would. 'Do you know him?'

I press my lips together.Brown suit. Tissue-pale skin. Thin, patient slit of a mouth. Hair, crazy, all over the place...

'...No... No, I've never seen him before...'

I bend down; find a stubby branch and-- with all the skill of a serial Phys Ed absentee-- launch it across the gap between us and watch it pass straight through the wiry, unfamiliar man's torso.

Nothing.

Then-- slowly-- his head turns. He looks right at me.

His eyes: one blue, one brown.

I feel something go through me. Something cold. An interruption. Like a wave of electricity rippling through my bloodstream.

Melanie says my name again.

One blue, one brown. His eyes.

'...Sydney? What's happening?'

I try and flinch away, but his stare is magnetic. My body is a post, hammered into the ground. Frozen, unbending, as he presses needles carefully into each of my pores. His fingernails under my fingernails. Peeling them back from my skin.

' _Sydney._ Look at me. Can you see me?'

A pale figure in the corner of my eye, careful steps.

Her eyes on me.

 _His_ eyes. On me.

'Sydney. Can you see my hand?'

The man's hand has a knife. In the other, a stump of wood. Slowly, the blade curls away a sliver... Slowly, slowly... A pale delicate curl. A little girl's hair.

'Sydney. Nod if you can see my hand.'

The white drape of a woman's sleeve. Her long fingers, rings glinting in a drop of sunlight.

Blue. Brown. Black pupils. Watching.

I dip my chin, tinily.

'OK. Sydney. Look at me; not at him. Keep watching my hand Sydney.'

I try and turn my head, but it feels impossible. More than that. It feels _stupid_. He's looking at me. Watching me. Turning down the arms of my gloves with cheerful laziness and walking his fingertips along the crook of my elbow.

I force my eyes leftwards. A little at a time. Slowly, the forest melts like candle-wax into a marbled green-black blur behind the five white lines of Melanie Bird's fingers.

He's still watching. Staring. Smiling.

'He's staring straight at me.' I say.

'Okay.' Melanie's almost beside him now. He doesn't seem to have noticed, his eyes stuck on mine. Another smooth, long pull of the knife blade.

One more step, and the man's shoulder is lit by the pale fabric of Melanie's coat, like a flashlight shone through tissue paper.

I blink.

Melanie's voice; quiet, steady: 'Am I behind him now?'

I nod again. Try to keep my gaze on the other woman's hand. Her arm, her face.

'Walk towards me Sydney.'

'I can't.' I whisper.

'Can you see me?' Melanie says again. She's almost entirely behind him now. But somehow I can see them both. A trick. Of the light. I blink again. Somewhere above me the efficient chackchackchackchack of a woodpecker.

'Take one step Sydney. Just one. I promise he won't hurt you.'

I push my toes forward in the dirt.

The man doesn't move. His eyes--

'And another step Sydney. A smaller step.'

My left foot now. The woodpecker stops. Starts again. chackchackchackchack

'Keep your eyes on me Sydney. Can you see my eyes?'

'...Yeah.' I take another step, releasing a breath that feels like a lung deflating. I hold Melanie's blue, unblinking gaze. Another step. Another.

'And can you see my shadow Sydney, on the ground?'

I nod. Take another step.

'...Does the man have a shadow?'

My eyes flick downwards. And-- as they do-- the scrawny, craggy-faced apparition in front of me fades out into nothing. Gone. Quick as snuffed-out birthday candle.

Gone. He's gone.

All at once, I'm staring straight ahead into a copse of trees that now holds just Melanie, solid and real in front of me, coat twitching in the breeze, long, dark shadow stretching away from her boots across the earthy ground.

I blink moisture back into my blurry eyes.

'...Sydney?'

'He's...Gone.' I affirm, folding my arms compulsively around my body, feeling the warm assurance of my gloves, silky and unmoved, pulled right up to my elbows.

Melanie looks at me. She doesn't try and come closer and I'm stupidly grateful for it.

'Did you know him?' She asks.

'No.' I shake my head.

We look at each other. For a minute there, I'd forgotten I was escaping.

I drag in a deep shaking breath.

'David needs me.' I tell her 'I need to go to him.'

'I know.' Melanie replies, softer than I've heard yet. 'I know. Let us help you. Cary has an idea.'

 

**O**

 

It's not arguing, exactly. But mutterings, I guess. Unhappy mutterings I can hear all the way down the hallway right up until we walk into the lab, when Ptonomy and Cary glance around at me from around the table, suddenly silent.

If I was a less secure person, I might think they were talking about me.

'Ok so,' Cary gives me a tight smile, dragging sheaves of paper across the tabletop. 'This is everything we could pull up. Not much, but...' He points at a grainy aerial photograph of what looks like an innocuous grey concrete office block. Like Summerland, it seems half-obscured by forest, and there are odd pockmarks all over the image; black-holes the camera can't penetrate. 'It's an old ammunition testing centre, about fifteen miles out of the city. D3 have used it before.'

'This is where David is?' I ask. Ptonomy nods back at me.

'Cameras on the perimeter.' He says, indicating a ring of circles in green ink that halo the photograph. 'We can take them out. Additional coverage at entrance and exit points-- only three ways in that we can see, but chances are there's more. Electrified fencing around the mapped circumference; barbed wire, the usual, further in. Nothing too high-tech. Armed security from a mile out-- Rudy thinks two separate patrols. The formation suggests military which is not a surprise, but we could do without it.'

'On the plus side,' Cary indicates the other photographs; various angles on a solid concrete sprawl, two stories, bleak and abandoned looking: 'no additional hardware on the ground and minimal windows for shooting out of.'

'Love your optimism.' Melanie says, tiny smile curling her mouth.

'Oh believe me, we're gonna need every break we can get on this one...'

I pull one of the blurry print-out pages towards me, examining the squat, dilapidated building-- but there's nothing to see. Two storeys, bullet-riddled walls. The photo's smeared, but even I can make out three black-clad figures ghosting the edge of the image, bulked up with riot gear and Kevlar.

'What's David's position now?' Melanie asks.

Cary turns; whacks one of the less obviously-augmented TV screens in his collection so the picture shutters back into focus: 'Right...' He points into the familiar flickering Braille spatter of white and red '...There. Unfortunately we don't really know where _there_ is; there aren't any plans of the place; no windows on that side of the building. As you can see...He's hopelessly outnumbered. _We're_ hopelessly outnumbered.'

I step closer to the screen. I can see the dot that is David-- larger and brighter than any of the others.

'...They haven't moved for a while.' Cary tells me. 'Which is...Good. Probably good.'

'So we figure we've got two options:' Ptonomy says, straightening up and crossing his arms. 'we blow the place sky-high...Basically never a smart plan. Or, we get a mole on the inside-- which, Syd, is where you come in.'

I narrow my eyes.

'And by 'inside' you mean...?'

'Inside David's head.' Cary clarifies, digging out something else from under the pile of photographs on the table and presenting it to me like a cat with a dead ferret.

It's a thin plate of copper, about the size of my palm. On one side, it's wired up with concentric rings of what look like multicoloured electrodes; the other, a tight mesh of silver-green circuitry,its edges punctuated by knots of fuses and fibre-optic wires glistening with wandering spots of yellow, like electric glowbugs, and a pair of long, thin transparent cables trailing downwards.

'It's a Neural Relay,' Cary explains. 'Or, hopefully. It's not really finished, but... David's a telepath. We know he can hear you reaching out to him but, from what you say, it's not consistent...This will let us-- you-- talk to him with far more precision. We attach these electrodes to your brain-stem-- non-invasively, don't--' he clearly sees my eyes flare '--it's ok, they're designed for external usage; recalibrate the signal from this--' he waves a hand at the screens behind him again, the shimmering galaxy of life-signs '--relay it via this little gadget through your brainwaves and so amplifying and stabilising your psychic connection with David.'

I stare at him. Just for a moment.

'You're making me a telepath?'

Cary blinks. 'Um. Yes, technically... A bionic telepath.'

He looks guardedly pleased with the idea.

I hold out my hand and Cary passes me the Neural Relay. It's lighter than I thought it would be. Warm.

'...Can David talk back?'

'Uh, theoretically. I'm hoping that by stabilising the connection you might actually be the sanest voice he's heard in a while.'

'So we contact David,' Ptonomy summarises 'via Sydney; he'll listen to her. With his eyes on the inside and our firepower outside, we hatch an escape plan: in, out, boom-- smash and grab rescue mission.'

'Sounds about right.' Cary affirms.

Ptonomy nods: 'Okay, and: any idea what this escape plan's gonna look like?'

The other three of us glance between each other. I shrug:

''In, out, boom' works for me.' I turn the little bundle of wires and gadgetry over in my hand again. Is it just me, or have the flickering glowbug lights changed direction?

'...I get to test this first though, right?'

 

**O**

 

We scatter back into the complex, with instructions from Melanie to meet out front again in half an hour. Time to ‘prepare’. I don’t know what I expect. Maybe, I dunno: uniforms. Balaclavas. Cargo pants.

When I say this, Ptonomy just laughs at me; properly laughs for the first time: ‘Yeah; and I’ll pick you up outside in the Batmobile.’

‘Well, what then?’ I raise an eyebrow ‘We’re going into rescue my boyfriend from Shady Government Assholes Incorporated with nothing but darn good luck?’

Ptonomy pushes his hands into his pockets; shrugs. ‘We have Kerry and Rudy— and your boyfriend, hopefully; if he’s on our side.’

‘He’s on _my_ side.’ I reply. Ptonomy looks unconvinced.

‘Hope so.’ He repeats, and continues down the stairs towards the storage units.

There are clothes folded up in the drawers in my bedroom (all sizes, all unisex: I wonder how many visitors Summerland actually has) and I dig through until I find something that'll fit. Something I can run in. Something tight against my skin that will cover the neat line of electrodes Cary has attached carefully along the back of my neck. A black sweater with a high collar. Long sleeves with my gloves pulled over the top. Black pants, boots. The Neural Relay nestles neatly between my shoulder-blades, copper soaking up my body heat. I turn and survey myself in the long wall mirror. If I look close, I can see the tiny lights blinking through the cotton of my shirt; but only if I look close.

At the last second, halfway out the door, I tug the red ribbon from my coat pocket and use it to tie my hair up in a long ponytail, out of the way. Something a little bit of me. Something David will recognise.

When I get outside again, the others are already waiting. Ptonomy has returned to his tweed jacket and cap, but he’s carrying an old-style submachine gun, and for the first time, I notice a shoulder holster strapped across his shirt.

‘Backup.’ He explains lightly. I roll my eyes.

Melanie's re-tied her hair away from her face and swapped her shoes for sturdier knee boots; but Cary hasn't even bothered to find a proper jacket. He obviously notices my quizzical look because he drags up a wry smile and gestures vaguely back at the building behind us: 

'Oh, I'm way more use here.' He points towards the Neural Relay, hidden under my shirt. 'Anything goes wrong with that, Kerry can take care of it. Not that-- I mean, nothing will...' 

Melanie leads the way through the forest. I stick close behind her, but it's clear she's following some path that I can't see, or some signs I can't understand, because we've barely gone ten minutes before the dense, suffocating canopy begins to open out, black turning to green turning to a sudden bloom of white-blue afternoon sky plummeting down towards an impossibly clear stretch of water, rippling with fish and birdsong.

I stop, more out of surprise than anything else, eyes drinking in the cool, wavering expanse. Cary and Ptonomy slip past me, and I see they're heading towards a tiny, well-used looking motorboat, bobbing gently against a creaking, moss-freckled jetty. I push a hand across my cheek; it's been a long time since I saw open water.

'--Melanie.' I say abruptly, as the other woman moves to go past me. She stops; turns to me with expectant eyebrows.

'Sydney? Are you alright?'

'Yeah.' I brush her concern aside. 'I just...'

I cross my arms, glancing over as Ptonomy yanks the ignition and the little boat's engine sputters into life, startling a cloud of wood pigeons out of the trees nearby.

'In Clockworks, when you went to find David the first time.' I say carefully '...You knew I was there. You saw me on your mutant tracker thing.'

Nothing moves in Melanie's face. But I get the distinct feeling she's working out how much to admit to.

'...We knew.' She confirms eventually.

I narrow my eyes: 'And you didn't think I was worth rescuing?'

'David was our priority.' Melanie explains and I nod.  

'Okay, well, I guess that's what I wanted to say.' I tell her quietly. 'David's my priority too. And this? The rescuing? I'm doing this for him. Not for you.' I glance past Melanie's shoulder, at Cary and Ptonomy, loading up the boat; around me at the densely-planted evergreen forest; back at the strange futuristic mutant rehab centre behind me, swallowed up by the trees. 'Not for...I don't know what's going on with D3 and all this... And I don't care. I don't owe you anything. He's my reason and whatever happens out there, I won't leave him behind. Okay?'

Melanie just looks at me for a long moment.

Eventually, she nods, a tiny bittersweet curve at her lips:

'...Understood.'

 


	5. Shady Government Assholes Incorporated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _'You're going to go for a swim. And I'm going to get you out.'_
> 
> In, out, boom. Or that's the plan, anyway. Sydney and the Summerlanders put their rescue plan in motion-- and hope to _sh*t_ David's on-board.

 It's not like before. There's nothing ragged or faded. The sun glints against solid planes of colour and edges I could cut myself on-- just like the slant of dusty sunlight that flares across swimming pool's surface-- and David is walking fast in those grey clothes I don't recognise, head down, eyes darting around like the guiltiest little boy in the world.

It's so real it almost hurts.

I want to be kind, but there isn't much time: 

'Don't slow down.' I say.

David starts at my voice, eyes widening to the size of saucers as I slip out of nowhere and fall into step beside him on the sidewalk.

'How- How did you..?' He glances around. I guess after a few years of psychosis it becomes second nature to check if anyone else is seeing what you see. He lowers his voice and I lean in closer:

'I've been looking-- no-one would tell me--' He looks at me, the pupils small and black in his bright disbelieving irises. '--Syd--I don't understand...I was you...' Even after everything, I can see his cheeks flush as he says these crazy things. His hand flails between our bodies and I have to remind myself not to flinch away. 'Did that really?... We kissed and, I mean-- I know I'm crazy-- but it felt so--'

I could listen to him speak to me forever.

'--David. Stop.' I hold up my black-gloved hands: 'I'm not really here.'

And he does stop. Stares at me. He has the kind of face that hides nothing. Open, and honest. As honest as you can be when you can't trust your own brain.

'...What do you mean? Where else would you be?'

 

**O**

 

Our boat cuts through the water like scissors through gift-wrap. Not fast; no, not fast. Not fast enough. But inexorably forward and I think; yesterday I was in a mental hospital. Today? I'm breaking my boyfriend out of a military bunker. And I wonder:

Is this real?

Is this. Real?

Breeze in my eyes, cool fingers tugging my hair from my face:

'How much longer?'

I push out with my arms, a breast-stroke, a strong breast-stroke, eyes wide open and seeing everything, the riverbed thick with stars.

_David. Wake up, David._

Melanie has the map. It's made of glass or...a thin sheet of something flexible and transparent, scribbled all over with yellow and pink topography lines that flicker and reform over and over like a neon Etch-a-sketch. I can see...There we are, that dot-- she points. And I see.

My reflection undulates against the surface of the river.

'Ever shoot a gun?'

I narrow my eyes; try to tease out all the inflections of Ptonomy's voice as he makes to pull his revolver out of it's holster. I imagine it, heavy in my hand; warm from his body heat. Death loaded in its barrel.

'Yes-- And I'm not gonna.' I tell him sharply. I think of the kick-back from a hand-gun. I think of fire and the thump of flesh hitting the ground.

The sun is warm. I can already feel the sweat prickling under my arms; all along the edges where metal touches my skin. This will be hard.

Battering footsteps. Screaming, Screaming.

Ptonomy's mouth is a straight ruled line, drawn in hard pencil.

'You'll wanna take this anyway. Just in case.'

'But we have Rudy and Kerry.' I repeat his words back at him, stubborn. My mom always said I was stubborn. 'And we'll have David. This is a rescue mission, right?' Melanie's listening in. I can see her, all in cream and white in the corner of my eye.

'I'll get him, you cover me--that sounds like it'll work, doesn't it?'

The birds are still chirruping around us, undisturbed by the low, steady purr of the boat's engine. Whatever happens now, those birds will keep singing. They won't notice if my blood is seeping out into the ground.

Ptonomy's face tilts and sways before mine with the up-down tilt and sway of the boat. The trees fade in and out of focus behind him, childish, collaged patches of spongy green paint and gold foil and scribbled black crayon.

A dot of white. A dot of white. White.

What are they, pigeons?

Yesterday I was in a mental hospital.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Mild to moderate clinical anxiety. Chronic depersonalisation disorder.

What if it was all..? If it was just..? If it

 

**O**

 

'This is your memory of the day you went back to the hospital. Not the actual day. I'm inside your memory.'

David blinks at me. I don't know how I can say it any more clearly.

His hands make a sharp movement, like he's resisting pulling the thoughts out of his own head.

'--But-but that's not--'

We're still walking, our footsteps falling in sync, the crowd around us slipping past like salmon in a river.

'I've been projected into your memory.' I explain, looking around at the pedestrians who are passing us by without a glance, the well-manicured sidewalk trees. 'We're not on the street, not really. We're in your mind. They can't track us here.'

'Who?' David asks immediately, and I see his eyes caught by a movement in front of him. I stare, almost as startled as he is. It's Kerry and Ptonomy. They've emerged from the crowd and appeared at the next corner, looking around for their quarry; they must've doubled around, but...Weird, because it wasn't Ptonomy...Not in reality, it--

David stares at them, colour draining again from his face; back at me: 'How is that--?'

I raise a finger, shushing his protests:

'--We don't have much time.'

 

**O**

 

Crickets. I can hear the crickets again, hidden in the grasses all around us, as Ptonomy cuts the engine ten metres from the rocky outcrop where Rudy and Kerry are waiting for us. So _small_ , look at them, skulking by the trees; two little action figures, waiting on the shore.

We drift towards them.

A brief___ stillness____

Then; the first soldiers come. Just a handful, tearing out of the scraggly woods, all in black, guns propped against their shoulders, mouths red holes in faces wrapped in wool masks and camouflage paint.

 _'Get--_!'

My arms curled over my head, my face pushed into the curved hull of the boat and

every           thi                          ng

                                                      slo                 ws            s                      s

The boat tilts once, sharply; I think Ptonomy has fired his handgun. I twist my head upwards, try to see. All... bundled in wool. Cotton wool in my ears, my eyes

'Stay down, Sydney, it's--'  
Melanie's hand at my shoulder, not touching.

Her eyes; one blue, one--

'I'm okay' I say, whisper, 'I'm o...kay'

I can't hear my own voice. I can't hear anything.

Above me, the forest curls and fades like a photograph. Lines of magenta trace the edges of black leaves; the sky beyond them searing my eyes with some painfully saturated turquoise.

Waves of colour fall from Kerry's hair as she spins at an impossible speed, an impossible slowness; cracks the nose of a guy twice her size with a foot probably smaller than mine, returning to a fighting stance without a breath lost, eyes glittering like quartz.

They're so small. Look at them: back to back, fists raised. Blue shadows on yellow. Circling, circling...

Rudy's eyes are set on the form of a second soldier, slip-sliding down the grassy hillside towards them. The soldier lifts his gun, the same moment Rudy raises his hand, and-- somehow, I can't see it-- the rifle is wrenched from the arms of its owner. It dangles momentarily in the hazy afternoon sky like some ugly inert vulture, glint-sparkle-glint, before being hurled into the river just beyond us like it weighs no-more than a matchstick; a flat _splash._ The soldier flails his suddenly empty hands, giving Rudy so much time to lift his other palm, push outwards with it, almost lazily, and fling the soldier backwards so he lands painfully against the rocky wall, splayed out like a starfish.

' _Shit._..' My whisper. Maybe Ptonomy's.

Blood. Drips.

'David...' I say his name against the boat's damp, mildewy hull. I need to move soon. We. There's electricity rippling through the electrodes at the back of my skull and I know I can't feel it but I can, I _can,_ particles tangling in my neurons, grasping outwards, reaching for something--We need to--

'Syd, come on. It's okay.'

Ptonomy, thrusting an oar into my wet hands.

At the shore, Rudy helps tether the boat. His face is very white above the black turtleneck of his sweater.

I don't understand his words at first.

'They've moved him.'

'David?' Melanie's voice.

'He's still in the complex.' Kerry clarifies, glancing back up towards the concrete bunker. 'On the other side. They have a training pool there.'

'...He's in a swimming pool?'

An odd smile tilts Rudy's mouth. 'They don't know how to contain him.'

'Is he okay?' Me now. Heat, white hot. Press down, _two, three-_ -

Rudy nods, as Kerry asks me abruptly: 'Did you feel it? When he used his powers?'

'—I--' The stars. The riverbed smashed up like a broken mirror. A broken lampshade. A broken. White hot, the pulse in my spine, too much electricity in my head.

Melanie's eyes on me.

'I...I think so.' I push my hair back from my forehead. 'I-I think...What happened?'

It's the helmet, I realise, my insides twisting. The helmet, the balaclava, stemming the blood flow. All the black; doesn't show the--

Kerry shrugs: 'Didn't see, but his electromagnetic signature was off the charts-- _'_

'–They hustled him out of there pretty quick.' Rudy interjects; glances between all of us. 'They were ready. They've been planning for this.'

'Well so have we.' Melanie replies shortly. Black, black, black. We're all in black aside from her, flowing white and neat eyeliner. She isn't worried, I realise. Not really. She thinks we can do this.

She glances towards the shadowy copse of trees surrounding us. Down at the shadowy corpse sprawled across the shingle:

'How long before they notice they're missing?'

Rudy presses his lips together: 'Ten, maybe twelve minutes? If we can re-direct the cameras, we might get double that.'

'Is there a route?'

'Six minutes up, three minutes down.' He reports on a sigh 'Straight line; not much coverage. We'll have to be fast.'

Melanie nods, turns to me:

'Sydney? Sydney.'

'...I.' I nod, hold her gaze. It's coming back, it's. 'Yes. I'm.'

'You need to get him on our side.' Melanie repeats, her voice is strong. Sure. Her hand back at my arm again: 'Make sure he understands what's going on. We don't do anything without his cooperation.' She glances around at the others. 'In, out. That's all. No engagements, if it can avoided. David is the priority.'

 

**O**

 

I take a breath, trying to siphon out all the things I want to say to him and what I _need_ to say.

'You're in a  government facility.' I explain.

'I know, they said they were cops.'

'They're...Not cops. I'll tell you everything,' I promise quickly, watching David's face collapse into confusion again '--soon. But that's not what we're going to do now.'

'What are we--?'

I think of the pool, black-clad guards stationed around the perimeter; David's reflection stretched and wobbling in the surface of the water.

'You're going to go for a swim.' I say. 'And I'm going to get you out.'

 

**O**

 

Kerry, Rudy, me, Ptonomy. That's how we go, all the way. Sticking to the shadows of the trees. Six minutes up. Melanie stays with the boat.

I don't question it. I go.

Rudy is in front of me; I watch the curve of his left ear as we run, and the occasional flash of his sharp, set profile. His skin is white-grey, cast in plaster against the sooty monochrome fuzz of the trees; some pirate TV channel that won't quite take

_orry         ab out me. It's you                      that          s_

_oblems_

_Can some/ one/one switch that?_

Grinning teeth yellowed by shit food and toothpaste rations and tea 'cos there's nothing else to do

_We're in it's_

_Why couldn't you                                              a mental hos touch_

_People have iss   ues                     her_

_tal                                                                               hospital_

...It's the adrenaline, I guess.

I know that. I know that. It's the adrenaline.

After a few minutes breathless running, Kerry drops into a crouch and points meaningfully towards the periphery of the building. I hold my breath...a balloon in my chest.. two, three, four, five...and watch a grey plastic security camera swivel a few inches to the left.

His eyes: one blue, one brown. Needles in my pores.

A shiver races through me.

'Yeah, and can we keep moving?' I hiss.

Kerry scowls at me; but she does as I ask, slipping from shadow to shadow under the trees. I watch the back of Rudy's head and put my feet where his were and try not to make a sound-- try even harder not to pass out or go into shock or scream when the body of another soldier rolls limply past me into the side of a tree, caked in blood where Kerry had smacked the barrel of his rifle straight back into the his face.

Rudy makes a signal that even I understand; a _down_ , _close to the ground, stop_ that finally gives me a moment to drag air in through my nose, curling my fingers into the warm earth beneath my knees. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe...Ptonomy looks at me; holds my gaze for too long and I nod, grateful for it.

We look up.

It's just like the pool in the city, where my elementary class used to go for swimming lessons. A solid, unexceptional rectangle of concrete, floor-to-ceiling windows. They should look in onto a bright, noisy, light-filled bubble of shrieking kids and grown-ups mincing over wet tiles.

But we peer around the corner and I see the windows are all boarded over with sheet metal, or hooded in tarpaulin. Outside: half a dozen more wary, gun-toting guards.

 _Shit_.

I blink, sweat dripping into my eyelashes.

Rudy exchanges a glance with Kerry, then turns to Ptonomy and I. Points, to himself; lifts both hands, then jabs a finger at each of us; a sweeping gesture and one-two-three: _those guards. Those guards, take them down._

There's a window on this side. Rudy points it out; just tarpaulin, it looks like. Hopefully.

I stare at the blue swathe of plastic. At the guards. Then at the others.

David's in there. I remind myself. Just there, really, just beyond that wall.

I nod.

Rudy turns. I see him take a breath. Then, he lifts his fingers, clenches his hands into fists; pulls.

The line of guards stagger, their firearms ripped out of their hands and tossed upwards into the trees.

Like a starter pistol's been fired, Kerry and Rudy start running, and I don't even know what I'm doing, I just follow; see a guard thrust a fist outwards from the corner of my eye and duck, turn; hear a sickening crack as behind me Ptonomy swings the barrel of his gun down against the soldier's temple, felling him like a rag doll.

My toes catch on something and I hit the ground and the wind goes out of me, but I dig my elbows in and start pulling, dragging myself towards that rectangle of blue. David's in there. David's _there_ \--

I scramble back to my feet and run, following the others around the side of the building, under the crossed eyes of the misdirected security cameras. We trickle around the corner, one two three four of us; press up close against the concrete.

Breathe, breathe, breathe, _breathe_ \--

That blue rectangle.

Ptonomy makes a quick, silent slash with the knife ferreted away in one of his inside pockets, tugs carefully at the plastic. Holds it back just an inch, so we can see.

More guards. More guards, more guns. A machine.

And a man, sitting in the pool. His torso is above the water, pool lights sapping the colour out of his skin. His hair is all sticking up on one side and he has purple-blue shadows bundled under his eyes like he hasn't slept for days or maybe, has done nothing but sleep. But I know his face.

I press my mouth against the back of my hand.

David. He's rught there. David.

 _David._ _I'm here. Can you hear me?_

'That your guy?' Rudy whispers.

I nod, just as Ptonomy holds up a warning hand:

A voice bounces against the tiles; a voice I don't recognise, echoing back and back and back. I strain my ears to make the words out:

'...Huh? Uh Those are power er cables. Sss You're submergederged in water. rrr If you try anyanythingthing, you'll get geta a hundred thouthoussandsand volts before you take ake a breath breath...'

My eyes widen, even as a low chuckle echoes across the surface of the water:

'...What'ssss so oh oh funny?'

David's voice now. Wretched, Tired. Furious: 'I'm insan in e ane you idiot ot. This is my-- delusion usion. It's not ot real eel eel.'

I close my eyes. Oh David.

_But you? You don't have it. Not in the eyes._

'Stop playing laying around ound. Where's the girlirl irl?'

'What girlirl irl?' David's voice snaps back.

'David id. Don't be cleverver ever . We know oh who you are. We know oh oh they came for for herher at the hospital, ital thinking she ee was you ooh.'

Kerry, Ptonomy, Rudy and I all stare at each other.

'No.' David's voice again. Angry. Stubborn. A flare of red, metal puncturing flesh. 'You took her er, at the hospitaspialtal. You were ere there air air.'

Rudy's gesturing for our attention, pointing towards the cables-- the power cables-- that trail across the poolside and down into the water; languorous tentacles of some giant sea monster.

The other voice. Weary. Bored of this game:

'No David avid id. It's clear now ow, what happenhapedpened. They came for you oo, but got her by accibydent accident. And now we have you oo, but we want her too oo-- so just ust ust—y'know—oh tell tell me me—or or--'

The threat remains unspoken.

But it's okay. We're not really dealing in words anymore.

Rudy murmurs into my ear, and my stomach turns over as I understand. The easiest way. It's right there.

A hundred thousand volts before you can--

'...We won't do anything until he's out of the way.' Rudy promises.

'Probably wanna do something _soon_ though,' Kerry mutters, face impassive.

I reach around to touch my fingers to the electrodes still pressed into the back of my neck. Catch Ptonomy's eye.

'Just like before.' He reminds me. 'Just talk to him.'

Yeah. Talk to him. With my cybernetically-enhanced telepathy. Like it's that simple.

_You were there, at the hospital_

_No David_

_It's clear now what happened_

_This is my delusion, none of this is real_

_No David_

I hold Ptonomy's gaze, letting a slow breath out from between my teeth. The words come too, and I have no control over them:

'...What if he doesn't believe me?'

 

**O**

 

'A swim?' David repeats. I nod back at him.

'Slowly, so they don't notice. Slide out of your chair into the water.' I see the confusion in his face; the merging of memory-David and the David doing the remembering. Two spots on a timeline folded up like an origami butterfly.

In the corner of my eye I see Ptonomy and Kerry, running. They've caught sight of us. But they won't make it. I know they won't. I hear the screech of tyres around a tight corner.

'And when you see the lights,' I tell him, doing everything I can to make him understand. The lights. The fireball of electricity and water, the sizzle of flesh, bodies burnt through.

'don't come up till you see me.'

_Please don't come up till you see me._

David is staring at me now, his face inches from mine. Drinking me in. I can see it; his brain ticking, trying to make sense, trying to decide...

Kerry and Ptonomy, almost there. they're running as hard as they can, but their pounding footsteps are swallowed by the roar of an approaching engine, a screech of tires, a clang of metal as the unmarked van powers to a halt next to us, cutting us off from the view of the Summerlanders.

'David.' I snap his name as the door is dragged open, as the black-gloved hands reach out, and it's all I can hope for, that he believes me. That the next time we look at each other, it'll be real.

'David. Do you understand?'

David--

 

 

_David_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Wake up_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But wait...What's this?

...And all the little piggies cried

_We. Did it. We.                               We._

whee' and ran all the way back to their cozy little cult bunker hidden in the mountain-side.

_David_

_You were in my head. ...Syd. So much was, in. But...oh       god._

_Sydney._

_and the water so      ca       lm like nothing's... h        d at all._

_I know, I'm breathing. Yeah yeah I know_

Remind me how they're gonna make you better?

_ripple                                  splash                              r ipple                                                   silverfish_

_I KNOW, okay, stop_

Remind me how this is different to the nuthouse, again?

_R a_

_ce                                 you to                                                                                                  dry land..._

Nah. Screw that.

Here's an idea; how about...We don't?

How about...A new story?

_Casseopia. Andromeda. Ursa Major._

Yeah, yeah; y'know, I've done these before. David's got 'em all memorised, burning gas-balls splattered all over the inside of his skull. Much like... _yours truly_ , but oh; what's this? Haha, yeah I know. Surprise, bitch! No worries though; I'm sticking around. I got one hand in my pocket and the other one is fucking you right round, baby, right round.

So.

Let's start at the beginning.

Isn't that what she said? The good Doctor Melanie? You've noticed that ring on her finger, right? How shiny her eyes get when she's sucking in your beau's facial structure?

_All             yours now, I_

_gue   ss guest           s_

\-- Right, fine. Back to the brick wall. What do the stars say? wait; I got this one. Gemini: the Twins. One person, two bodies. Or one body, two people.

                                                    _David. No.         Oh.        Oh._

                                                                                                  _Babe._

How's that work again? Complicated. Not clean-CUT, right?

_Look at her            She's so b             e aut               She_

_loves_

_me                she..._

Chopped into little pieces.

                                                _Oh         Ohhhh Oh...I love. I LOve._

                                                                                              L O V E L O  E   V LO   E

                                                                                                                                     V  O  L

Look at me! No, no...loookk, there we go. Oh look at those lips, babe. All fat and pink. Oh it's okay, it's okay, I'm not real, I'm not Touching you, Dorothy

_Head         between your k ees.  C'mon now. Baby stuff. B r e a t h e_

_through it. Wait. Fuck, where even I s--_

_Look. At. You. Look at.                                  Cat_

_Bat._

_I          love you, David. Don't_

_It's   okay, It'll be    it'll be safe         For a little while._

_S at._

_Qumquat._

_Dapple my cheek with your_

_s I l e my love._

_I  think._

_I think it_

_where the hell is th... Ha h a    hah, oh shi ii t_

_really will._

_Away from...D3..._

_And the head doctors_

_and the pil     ls_

_and the_

_cur   fews._

_Is this shock?_

_I think._

_Y                                        eah._

Here's a question.

                                                            _Th_

_is           is_

_ss sh    ck._

If you, y'know, cop it? In someone else's flesh-bag? Do you die? Or do they? Or do both of you...? Yeah, that'd suck, right? Oh I know. I know. Forget I- forget it, let's

What do the stars say..?

                                        SPOILER ALERT

they're all DEAD. They're not saying _ah-nay-thang_. They're signposts to a galaxy that used to be. A ghost-world. A big carbon-based haunted house. Just. Like. You.

A            delu         you       sion.               Ill ill ill   lusion.

_Your hand is--_

_\--Please, no, stay--_

_I know,  I know._

_War m._

_Sure, I guess. I mean, she's sure sheshoo shoor. She's sure._

_Of me? Of me._

_God I wanna kiss you. I wanna I wanna have my ear against your he        rtbeat. I_

_want   to press your nails        into my skin until they make little moons, make sure we're both_

_really here 'cos                                       this_

_this all              f els...._

_...after_

...Nah, but they're _literally_ thirty-two floors down. Spit a gob from up here you'd have someone a broken skull. Is that what power feels like sugar-tits? Or is power that split cherry soaking through your panties?

                                                                                                                                             everything

                                                                                 a  f   t  e  r...

Ooooh, caught a nerve did I? Virgo; the Virgin...

I _know_. Men, right? But, had to happen someday kid. Keep a girl bundled up in a closet for too long time comes someone's gonna reach in for more than a jiffy cloth, you know what I mean? Nothing they love more than a bitta mystery. A bitta outta their reach. A bitta poisoned apple.

Yeah, and you've got worms crawling through you. But you've always known that.

                  _Come and put your feet in the water with me babe. Let's_

_soak_

_up_

_the cold_

_together. Can you be cold     with me       babe? Put your...yeah...Yeah_

_God Syd; this feels more like a dream than anything. Sydneeey._

_Look at_

They're not here for you. She said that, didn't she? They're here for David. Here. For. David. Not for you.

                  _David   David     I lo ve you._

What if these bars just--poof! Ah haha nah, just, fuck...FUCK. Yeeeahh... Feels good right? The wind in your hair... Nothing under you, nothing around, just... space, big empty space.

                                              _Feels like. Moths. their wi n gs fluttering against my skin. Oh no, I'm fine. Just..._

_You wanna fix him?_

Step out babe. Step out into that starry no-space and feel that crazy orgasmic _joy_ rattle through your little brittle bird-bones until you crack-splat all over the sidewalk.

                                                Re d leath   er yell ow leath   er

_Y      ou can fix me too. This is us, now._

_Us. You don't_

red leath red red

No?                                                                            red    leath

                                   red        red      red   redredreddreddrrreed

OK. Too soon. But

Think about it. Just.

_Shit. SHIT what hap_

red

_hap pened   back there?_

Think about. Turn that over in your shrunken skull for a bit.

              _See? We did it...We did it, we resCued him._

_Who was                                 Shit._

_I did it. Get-- and this?_

_Can I take          this o--?_

_Shit._

 

 

Don't worry. 

I'll wait.


End file.
